A Kiss In Time
by Teen-Idol
Summary: Ally fell under a spell… Austin broke the curse... A modern day take on Sleeping Beauty. Based on the book by Alex Flinn.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own the story or the plot of **A Kiss In Time **by Alex Flinn. Nor do I own the characters. I have adjusted a few things to fit the show and my ideas. I will merge some of the chapters together as I see fit to move the story along. Also, I do not own the show or the characters in Austin & Ally. That is strictly the product of Disney.**

**Without further ado, I present to you the first chapter of **A Kiss In Time**.**

Chapter One:

Ally's POV:

If I hear one more syllable about spindles, I shall surely die!

From my earliest memory, the subject has been worn to death in the castle, nay, in the entire kingdom. It is said that spindle, rather than Mama or Papa, was my first word in infancy, and I have little doubt that this is true, for 'tis the word which lights more frequently than any other upon my most unwilling ears.

"Ally, dearest, you must never touch a spindle," Mother would say as she tucked me into bed at night. "I will not, Mother."

"_Vous devez ne jamais toucher un axe_," my tutor would say during French lessons. "I will not," I told him in English.

"If ye spy a spindle, ye must leave it alone," the downstairs maid said as I left the castle, always with my governess, for I was never allowed a moment alone.

Every princeling, princess, or lesser noble who came to the castle to play was told of the restrictions upon spindles— lest they have one secreted about their person somewhere, or lest they mistakenly believe I was normal. Each servant was searched at the door, and thread was purchased from outside the kingdom. Even peasants were forbidden to have spindles. It was quite inconvenient for all concerned.

It should be said that I am not certain I would know a spindle if I saw one. But it seems unlikely that I ever shall.

"Why must I avoid spindles?" I asked my mother, in my earliest memory.

"You simply must," she replied, so as not to scare me, I suppose.

"But why?" I persisted.

She sighed. "Children should be seen, not heard."

I asked several times more before she excused herself, claiming a headache.

As soon as she departed, I started in on my governess, Lady Brooke. "Why am I never to touch a spindle?"

Lady Brooke looked aggrieved. It was frowned upon, she knew, to scold royal children. Father was a humane ruler who never resorted to beheading. Still, she had her job to consider, if not her neck.

"It is forbidden," she said.

Well, I stomped my foot and whined and cried, and when that failed to produce the desired result, I said, "If you do not answer, I will tell Father you slapped me."

"You wicked, wicked girl! God above will punish you for such deceit!"

"No one punishes princesses." My voice was calm. I was done with my screaming, now that I had discovered a better currency. "Not even God."

"God cares not for rank and privilege. If you tell such an awful lie, you will surely be damned."

"Then you must keep me from such a sin by telling me what I wish to know." Even at four or five, I was precocious and determined.

Finally, sighing, she told me.

I had been a long-wished-for babe (this I knew, for it had been told to me almost as often as the spindle speech), and when I was born, my parents invited much of the kingdom to my christening, including several women rumored to have magical powers.

"You mean fairies?" I interrupted, knowing she would not speak the word. Lady Brooke was highly religious, which seemed to mean that she believed in witches, who used their magic for evil, but not fairies, which used their powers for good. Still, even at four, I knew about fairies. Everyone did.

"There is no such a thing as fairies," Lady Brooke said. "But yes, people said they were fairies. Your father welcomed them, for he hoped they would bring you magical gifts. But there was one person your father did not invite: the witch Malvolia."

Lady Brooke went on to describe, at great length and in exhausting detail, the beauty of the day, the height of the sun in the sky, and the importance of the christening service. I closed my eyes. But when she attempted to carry me into my bedchamber, I woke and demanded, "What of the spindle?"

"Oh! I thought you were asleep."

I continued to demand to know of the spindle, which led to a lengthy recitation of the gifts I had received from the various guests. I struggled to remain attentive, but I perked up when she began to describe the fairies' gifts.

"Violet gave the gift of beauty, and Xanthe gave the gift of grace, although surely such qualities cannot be given."

I did not see why not. People often remarked upon my beauty and grace.

"Leila gave the gift of musical talent . . ."

I noted, privately, that I was already quite skilled on the piano.

". . . while Celia gave the gift of intelligence. . . ."

It went without saying. . . . Lady Brooke continued.

"Flavia was about to step forward to give the gift of obedience—which would have been much welcomed, if I do say so myself." She winked at me, but the wink had a hint of annoyance which was not—I must say—appreciated.

"The spindle?" I reminded her, yawning. "Just as Flavia was ready to step forward and offer her much-desired gift of obedience, the door to the grand banquet hall was flung open. The witch Malvolia! The guards tried to stop her, but she brazened her way past them.

"'I demand to see the child!' she said.

"Your nurse tried to block her way. But quicker than the bat of an eyelash, the nurse was on the floor and Malvolia was standing over your bassinet.

"'Ah.' She seized you and held you up for all to see. 'The accursed babe.'

"Your mother and father tried to soothe Malvolia with tales of invitations lost, but she repeated the word 'accursed,' several times, and then she made good the curse itself.

"'Before her sixteenth birthday, the princess shall prick her finger on a spindle and die!' she roared. And then, as quickly as she had arrived, she was gone. But the beautiful day was ruined, and rain fell freely from the sky."

"And then what?" I asked, far from interested in the weather now that I understood I might die by touching a spindle. Why had no one told me?

"Flavia tried to save the situation with her gift. She said that since Malvolia's powers were immense, she could not reverse her spell, but she sought to modify it a bit.

"'The princess shall not die,' she said. But as everyone was sighing in relief, she added, 'Rather, the princess shall sleep. All Euphrasian citizens shall sleep also, protected from harm by this spell, and the kingdom shall be obscured from sight by a giant wood, unnoticed by the rest of the world and removed from maps and memory until . . .'

People were becoming more nervous with each pronouncement.

'. . . one day, the kingdom shall be rediscovered. The princess shall be awakened by her true love's first kiss, and the kingdom shall awake and become visible to the world again.'"

"But that is stupid!" I burst out. "If the entire kingdom is asleep and forgotten, who will be left to kiss me?"

Lady Brooke stopped speaking, and then she actually scratched her head, as persons in stories are said to do when they are trying to work some great puzzle. At the end of it, she said, "I do not know. Someone will. That is what Flavia said."

But even at my tender age, I knew this was improbable. Euphrasia was small, bounded on three sides by ocean and on the fourth by wilderness. The Belgians, our nearest neighbors, barely knew we existed, and if Euphrasia disappeared from sight and maps, the Belgians would forget us entirely. Other questions leaped to mind. How would we eat if we were all asleep? And wouldn't we eventually die, like old people did? Indeed, the cure seemed worse than the original punishment.

But to each successive question, Lady Brooke merely said, "That is why you must never touch a spindle." And it is nigh upon my sixteenth birthday, and I have never touched one yet.

* * *

><p>11 Years Later<p>

Ally's POV:

Tomorrow is my sixteenth birthday. I do not suppose it necessary to explain the furor this has occasioned in the kingdom. 'Tis a heady occasion. Each year on my birthday, guests come from around the world to celebrate—and they bring gifts! Diamonds from Africa, crystal from Ireland, cheese from Switzerland. Of course, my sixteenth birthday is of special import. Rumor has it that a ship has sailed the world over, collecting items and persons for my pleasure. They say it has even visited the British colony on the other side of the world. I believe it is called Virginia.

But more than guests, more even than presents, is the actual hope that this whole spindle business will end today. _Before her sixteenth birthday_. That was what the witch Malvolia had said. So tomorrow Mother and Father will rejoice at having completed the Herculean task of keeping their stupid daughter away from a common household object for sixteen years, and then I can live the ordinary life of an ordinary princess.

I am ready for it.

It is not merely spindle avoidance that has been my difficulty thus far. Rather, because of this, I have been effectively shut out from the world. Other young maidens of my station have traveled to France, India, and even the wilds of Virginia. But I have not been permitted to make the shortest trip to the nearest kingdom, lest one of the populace there wished to attack me with a spindle. In the castle, the very tapestries seem to mock me with their pictures of places I have never seen. I am barely allowed outside, and when I am, it is only under the boring chaperonage of boring Lady Brooke or some other equally dull lady-in-waiting. I am fifteen years old, and I have never had a single friend. Who would want to be friends with an oddity who has never seen anything or done anything and is guarded night and day?

Likewise, a young princess my age would ordinarily have dozens of suitors questing for her hand. Her beauty would be the subject of song and story. Duels would be fought for her. She might even cause a war, if she was beautiful enough, and I am.

But though my beauty has been spoken of, raved of even, there has not been one single request for my hand. Father says it is because I am young yet, but I know that to be a lie. The reason is the curse. Any sensible prince would prefer a bride with freckles or a hooked nose over one like me, one who might fall into a coma at any instant.

There is a knock upon the door. Lady Brooke! "Your Highness, the gowns are ready for viewing," she calls from outside.

The gowns! They have been prepared especially for tomorrow. It will be the grandest party ever. The guests will arrive at the palace door in carriages or at the harbor in ships. There will be a grand dinner tonight, and tomorrow a ball with an orchestra for dancing and a second orchestra for when the first tires. There will be fireworks and a midnight supper and magnums of a special bubbling wine made by Benedictine monks in France, then a week of lesser parties to follow. It will be a festival, a Festival of Ally. I will be at the center of it, of course, courted by every prince and raja, and before it is over, I will have fallen in love— and I will be sixteen, cured of the curse.

"Your Highness?" Lady Brooke continues to knock.

The gowns—I need one for tonight and several for the ball tomorrow and a dozen or so more for the coming week—must be perfect. And then, perhaps Father will speak with the tailor who designed the loveliest one and have him create fifty or so more for my wedding trip around the globe.

Truth be told, it is the trip, rather than the wedding, which appeals to me. I care not for marriage at someone else's whim. But it is my lot in life, and a cross I must bear to gain the wedding trip. I am more than ready to leave Euphrasia, having been trapped here for almost sixteen years. And, of course, my husband shall be handsome, and a prince.

I fling the door open. "Well? Where are they?"

Lady Brooke produces a map of the castle.

I take it from her. One has to admire her organization. I see now that Lady Brooke has marked out the rooms which will be used to house our numerous royal guests. Other rooms are marked with a star. "What is this?"

"On the occasion of your last birthday, you told your father that, upon the occasion of this birthday, you required 'the most perfect gown in all the world.' Your father took this request quite literally and sent out the call to tailors and seamstresses the world over. China's entire haul of silk worms has been put to this task. Children have been pulled from their cottages and huts to spin and sew and slave, all for the pleasure of Princess Ally of Euphrasia."

"Very good, Lady Brooke." I know she thinks I am silly and spoiled. Was I not gifted with intelligence? I also know this not to be the case. How can I be spoiled when I never get to do a single thing I want? I did not ask that children be pulled from their cribs to slave for me, but since they were, is it not only courteous to gaze upon their efforts and, hopefully, find a dress or two that will be acceptable? I can already picture the gown in which I shall make my grand entrance at the ball. It will be green. "The map?"

"Yes, the map. Each tailor was asked to bring his twenty best creations, all in your exact measurements. Your father believed that you might be overwhelmed, gazing upon so many gowns at once. Therefore, he decreed that they be placed in twenty-five separate rooms of the castle. In this way, you may wander about, choosing as you will."

Twenty gowns times twenty-five tailors! Five hundred gowns! I grow giddy.

"We had best get started," I tell Lady Brooke.

We begin to walk down the stone hallway. The first rooms are on the floor above us, and as we climb the stairs, Lady Brooke says, "May I ask what you will do with the gowns which do not meet with your approval?"

This is a trick question, I know, like all of Lady Brooke's questions, designed to prove that I am a horrid brat. Why care I what Lady Brooke thinks? But I do, for much as I loathe her, she is my only companion, the closest thing I have to a friend. So I rack my brain for an acceptable answer. Give them to her? Surely not. The gowns were made to my exact measurements, and Lady Brooke, who has not been blessed with the gift of beauty, is an ungainly half a head taller than I, and stout.

"Give them to the poor?" I say. When she frowns, I think again. "Or, better yet, hold an auction and give the money collected to the poor. For food."

There! That should satisfy the old bat!

And perhaps it does. At least, she is quiet as we enter the first room. Quiet disapproval is the best I can expect from Lady Brooke.

Dresses line the walls, covering even the windows. Twenty of them, in different fabrics, different shapes, but every single one of them blue!

"Was it not communicated to the tailors that my eyes are brown and that I wanted a green dress to accentuate them?" I ask Lady Brooke in a whisper loud enough for the tailor to hear. I want him to. Of all the stupidity!

He hears. "You want a green dresses?" He has an accent of some sort, and when he moves closer, I see beads of sweat forming upon his forehead. Ew. I certainly hope that he has refrained from sweating over his work, which would make the fabric smell.

"Not all green," I say. "But I would not have expected all blue."

"Blue, it is the fashion this year," the sweaty tailor says.

"I am a princess. I do not follow fashions—I make them."

"I am certain one blue dress would be acceptable." Lady Brooke tries to smooth things over with this peasant whilst glaring at me. "Ally, this man has come all the way from Italy. His designs are the finest in the world."

"What?" I say, meaning, what does this have to do with me?

"I said . . . oh, never mind. Will you not look at the dresses now? Please?" I look. The dresses are all ugly. Or maybe not ugly but boring, with boring ruffles. Boring, like everything else in my life. Still, I manage to smile so as not to call out another lecture from Lady Brooke. "Lovely, thank you."

"You like?" He steps in my way.

_Would not I have said if I liked?_ But I tell him, "I will think upon it. This is the first room I have visited."

This seems to satisfy him. At least, he gets his sweatiness out of my way, and I am allowed to pass to the next room.

This room and indeed the two after it are little better. I find one dress, a pink one, which might be acceptable for a lesser event like Friday's picnic, some event at which I would not mind looking like the dessert, but nothing at all to wear on the Most Important Night of My Life.

"Ally?" Lady Brooke says after the third room. "Perhaps if you gave more than a cursory glance—"

"Perhaps if they were not all so hideous!" I am devastated and hurt, and Lady Brooke does not understand. How could she? When she was young, she could go to shops and choose her own clothing, even make it if she liked. I will never be normal, but barring that, I would like to be _abnormal_ in a lovely green dress without too many frills.

"Here is a green one," Lady Brooke says in the next room.

I glower at it. The ruffles would reach my nose. "This would suit . . . my grandmother."

"Could the ruffles be removed?" Lady Brooke asks the tailor.

"Could you create a gown that is not entirely hideous?" I add.

"Allyson . . ."

"It is naught but the truth."

"_Pardonez moi_," the tailor says. "The frock, I can fix it."

"_Non, merci_," I say, and flounce from the room.

In the next, I spy a lavender velvet with a heart-shaped neckline. I reach to touch the soft fabric.

"Beautiful, is it not?" Lady Brooke asks.

I pull my hand back. I am thoroughly sick of Lady Brooke and dresses and my life. I am certain she despises me as well and, suddenly, the company of even Malvolia herself seems preferable to that of the detestable Lady Brooke.

"Do you have anything better?"

"Ally, you are being terrible."

"I am being truthful, and I would thank you to remember that you are in my father's service."

"I know it. Would that it were not the case, for I am ashamed to be in your presence when you are behaving like a horrible brat."

She says it with a smile. The tailor, too, smiles stupidly. I stare at him. "Are there any gowns which are less likely to make me want to vomit than this one?"

The man continues to smile and nod.

"He speaks no English," I say. "So what care you what I say to him?"

"I care because I am forced to listen to you. You have grown more and more insolent in recent weeks. I am ashamed of you." She nods and smiles.

I feel something like tears springing to my eyes. Lady Brooke hates me, even though she is required to like me. Probably everyone else hates me, too, and merely pretends because of Father.

But I hold the tears back. Princesses do not cry.

"Then why not leave me alone?" I ask, smiling as I was trained. "Why does no one ever leave me be for one single, solitary instant?"

"My orders—"

"Were your orders to yell at me and call me a brat?" I begin to pace back and forth like a caged animal. I am a caged animal. "Tomorrow I shall be sixteen. Peasant girls my age are married with two and three babes, and yet I am not permitted to walk down a hallway within my own castle without supervision."

"The curse—"

"You do not even believe in the curse! And yet it has come true, not the spindle part, but the death. . . . I am living my death, little by little, each day. And when I am sixteen and the curse ends, I shall be given over to a husband of someone else's choosing, who will tell me what to do and say and eat and wear for the rest of my life. I can only pray that it will be short, pray for the blessed independence of the grave. I will always be under someone's orders." I begin to cry, anyway, to sob. What difference does it make? "Can I not simply walk down a hallway on my own?"

Through it all, the tailor smiles and nods.

Lady Brooke's expression softens. "I suppose it would be all right. After all, the tailors have been thoroughly searched and the spindle regulations explained to them."

"Of course they have." I sigh.

Lady Brooke turns to the man and speaks to him in French.

"Thank you!" I sob. I point to the lavender gown and say, in French, "It is beautiful! I shall take that one, and that one as well." I point to a charming scarlet satin with a neckline off the shoulders in the style of Queen Mary of England, a gown I had purposely ignored before, which now looks quite fetching.

"Very well." Lady Brooke hands me the map. "Just point to what you want, and they will put it aside."

I nod and take the paper from her. I am free—at least for an hour!

* * *

><p><strong>Let me know what you think and whether or not I should continue with this story, as well as my other ones.<strong>

**Reviews, favorites, and follows are greatly appreciated!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own the story or the plot of **A Kiss In Time **by Alex Flinn. Nor do I own the characters. I have adjusted a few things to fit the show and my ideas. I will merge some of the chapters together as I see fit to move the story along. Also, I do not own the show or the characters in Austin & Ally. That is strictly the commercial product of Disney.**

Chapter Two:

Ally's POV:

Free of the encumbrance that is Lady Brooke, I fairly skip down the stone hallways. I would swing from the chandeliers, could I reach them, but I content myself with jumping up toward them. My life is no less horrible than before, but at least there is no dour Lady Brooke to remark upon its horribleness.

In short time, I have chosen five dresses, none blue, but none special enough for my grand entrance at my birthday ball. Although one is green, it does not match the exact shade of my eyes that I need it to be.

"It will look lovely on you," says the tailor, who is from England.

Of course he thinks so. I know what he is about. Having his dress worn by a princess on an occasion of such import will increase his renown. For the rest of his life, he might call himself "Tailor to Ally, Princess of Euphrasia."

But his apprentice says, "Indeed. It may not be the shade you requested to compliment your remarkable eyes, but it will bring them out."

The tailor quickly shushes him, lest the boy disgrace them both by speaking so to a princess. But I turn toward him and smile. He is my age, no more, perhaps the tailor's son. And—I find it difficult not to notice—he is handsome. For a commoner. His eyes are the color of cornflowers.

"Do you think so?" He looks down, blushing.

"I meant no disrespect, Your Highness. But yes. It will look lovely on you, as any dress would."

I wonder what it would be like to be a common girl, who could flirt with such a handsome tailor's apprentice with impunity. Or, better yet, to be the apprentice himself, to be a boy, so young, yet traveling far from home. And to learn a trade such as making a dress. In all my life, I have never created anything, never _done _anything at all other than silly paintings of flowers for my art master, Signor Maratti and play classical pieces on the piano. Father hung them in his bedchamber, where they would be seen by no one. He and Mother didn't like people knowing of my musical talent either, so they only permitted me to play in the safety of the castle. A princess having musical interests was "unacceptable" in the eyes of my parents. I should be more focused on being future queen and taking over the throne, instead of composing my own songs.

Is it enough to be a princess, when being a princess means nothing?

I nod and turn reluctantly to the old tailor. "I shall wear it tonight for dinner. Many noblewomen will be in attendance, and if they compliment my gown, I will tell them your name." I start for the door.

The tailor bows, but the boy does not move. He is staring at me, entranced by my beauty. I get the strangest sensation across my arms. Of course he thinks I am beautiful, but I like that he sees me. I wonder if this is what it will be like when I meet my prince. Maybe it will not be so bad.

Five more rooms, then ten, and still the dress I desire has not been found. It seems a small task, certainly one the best tailors in the world should be able to accomplish. And yet they have not. I sigh. Perhaps I will wear the English tailor's dress to the ball after all.

I reach the end of the hallway. I have never been in this part of the castle before.

_Amazing. _

These rooms have barely been used, but surely a child—a normal child—would explore every room at some time. But I had not been a normal child. How could I be, when I had been constantly monitored since the day I was born?

I couldn't wait for my birthday to pass and the fears of spindles to go with it. Maybe then, my life wouldn't be so dull and structured.

I spy a staircase in the shadows. This is not one of the stairways I am accustomed to using to reach the fourth floor, and when I check Lady Brooke's map, I see that it was not included. How odd. I am seized with a sudden urge to run up its steps, even slide down the banister. But that is silly, and if I do that, I will be delayed. And then Lady Brooke will come looking for me. I turn back down the hall.

Suddenly, I hear a voice.

_It was a lover and his lass, _

_With a hey, and a ho, _

_And a hey nonny no . . . _

A lover.

_In the spring time, the only pretty ring time . . . _

A woman's voice, singing. Entranced, almost, I start up the stairs.

_When birds do sing, _

_Hey ding a ding, ding! _

_Sweet lovers love the spring! _

At the top of the flight of stairs, there is an open door. I stop. There is no tailor. I knew there would not be. But instead, there is an old woman sitting upon a bench. I see not what she is doing, for she is surrounded by dresses, so many dresses, much more than twenty. But that is not the remarkable thing.

Each and every dress is exactly the same shade of green as my eyes.

"Lovely!" The cry comes from me unbidden. I run into the room.

"Good afternoon, Your Highness." The old woman attempts to rise from her chair with great effort. She begins to curtsy.

"Oh, please don't!" I say. She is, after all, very old.

"Ah, but I must. You are a princess, and respect must be accorded certain positions. Those who do not take heed will pay the price."

She is almost to the floor, and I wonder how long it will take her to right herself. Still, I say, "Very well." I wish for a second—but only a second—that Lady Brooke were here so that she might see how I follow her directions about not arguing with my elders.

I step back and study the dresses. It seems there is every style and every fabric: satins, velvets, brocades of all designs, and a lighter fabric I have never seen before, which will float behind me like a cloud of butterflies.

Finally, the woman rises. "Do you like anything?"

I had nearly forgotten she was there, so enchanted was I with the gowns.

I sigh. "Yes, I like everything! It is all perfect."

She laughs. "I am honored that you believe so. For you see, I am from Euphrasia. I have seen you all your life, Your Highness, and have flattered myself that I knew better than any foreigner the designs that would suit my own princess."

"Indeed." I try to recall if I have seen her before, perhaps in the crowds at a parade. But why would I have noticed an old woman who looks much like any other? Only her eyes are unusual. They are not glazed over with a film of white, like so many very old people's are. Instead, they are lively, black and glittering like a crow's.

"Have you a special favorite?" she asks.

"This one." I start toward the lightweight dress. "I shall rival the fairies in this!"

"'Tis my favorite, too. Do you mind, Your Highness, if I sit back down? I know it is not the correct way, but I am quite old, and my knees are not what they once were when I was a young woman like yourself, dancing at festivals."

"Of course." I am flooded with gratitude toward this stranger who knows what I want, who understands me as Mother and Father and wretched Lady Brooke do not. I approach the dress. The old woman has settled back onto her stool and has begun some sort of needlework. There is a contraption in her hand, something that looks like a top with which children play. It is nearly covered in wool that has been dyed a deep rose.

"What is that?" I ask her.

"Oh, 'tis my sewing. I make my own thread. Do you wish to try?"

_Sewing?_ I step closer. The contraption is a wooden spike weighted at one end with a whorl of darker wood. A hook holds the thread in place, and when the thread is finished, it winds around the stick below the whorl, to be used for sewing. There is a quantity of unfinished wool at the top.

"Oh, I should not."

"Of course not. I misspoke. 'Twould be unfitting for a young lady such as yourself to make dresses. You were born merely to wear them. Humble souls like myself were meant to create."

I nod, approaching the dresses again. "Only . . ." I pause, entranced.

"What is it?" I am touching the fabric, but I glance back at her.

"They say 'tis lucky. 'Twas handed down to me by my mother and her mother before her, and all who make thread with it are entitled to one wish."

"A wish?" I know what Lady Brooke would say on the subject. Her thoughts on wishes are much like her thoughts on magic. Superstition is the opposite of God. Still, I say, "Have you ever wished upon it?"

"Aye." She nods. "I have indeed, when I was young. I wished for a long life."

I stare at her. Her face is like crumpled silk, and her hair the color of paper.

"How long ago was that?"

"When I was your age, fifteen. So nigh upon two hundred years."

I gasp, but the old woman holds my gaze.

"What would you wish for, Your Highness? I know you must have wishes, trapped as you are in this castle, longing to marry if only to get out, not daring to hope for freedom." Her voice is very nearly hypnotic. "Be not afraid. What do you wish for?"

_My freedom. Or love. Or . . . travel._ I wish to travel the world, to be not a princess trapped in a protected existence, but a human girl. _Silly thought. I cannot do that. _

"I think . . ." I say, "I will try it."

She nods and moves aside to make room for me on the bench. Her movement is less labored than before. She pats the space beside her. "Sit, Princess." She hands me the object, stick first. "This in your right hand. Then take the thread in your left, and spin it clockwise. When the thread has begun to spin, you make your wish."

I take the stick. I am distracted, thinking of my wish, my freedom, of seeing the world. As I reach for the thread, I feel a stab of pain in my finger. The hook at the end has punctured my left ring finger. When I glance down, I see a drop of crimson upon my skirt.

Blood.

I stand up from my seat.

It is only then that I realize what the object is.

A spindle.

_The princess shall prick her finger on a spindle. _

I hear the old woman's laughter as I begin to sink down.

Malvolia!

"You!" I exclaim, feeling myself get dizzier.

"A pleasure to finally meet you, Your Highness." The evil witch bows and cackles loudly as my eyes start to flutter and the room spins around.

My last thought as I hit the ground is, _I should have listened to Lady Brooke. _

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you for all of the support that I have already gotten from the first chapter. I wasn't expecting so many of you to favorite and follow this story, but I really appreciate.<strong>

**I hope you like this chapter as well, and I will try to update my other stories tomorrow or sometime this weekend.**

**I've added some things into this chapter, which I feel would suit the story better. If you have any suggestions, they are welcome.**

**Also, for those of you who have read my one-shot Baggage Claim, I will not be adding an epilogue. I feel some things are already fine the way they are and anything more might ruin them instead of making them better, as with that story. However, I will consider it if I find an idea that I really like.**

**Thank you, and please don't forget to review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own the story or the plot of **A Kiss In Time **by Alex Flinn. Nor do I own the characters. I have adjusted a few things to fit the show and my ideas. I will merge some of the chapters together as I see fit to move the story along. Also, I do not own the show or the characters in Austin & Ally. That is strictly the commercial product of Disney.**

**I've noticed a steep decline in reviews and it is very disappointing and discouraging to me. I hope that more of you dotake ythe time to leave a few words; I would really appreciate it.**

**The next few chapter will center around Austin's viewpoint, and after that, they will be a combination of both Austin's and Ally's. I will distinguish which is which and will let you know in advance. Thank you.**

Chapter Three:

Austin's POV:

What they don't tell you about Europe is how completely lame it is.

I should have guessed, though. It was my parents' idea. They're not exactly renowned for their coolness. They sent me on this tour of Europe, supposedly for my education but really to get me out of their hair for a month, while simultaneously being able to brag to their friends that "Jack is on tour in Europe, getting something interesting to write about on college essays."

Painful admission here: I didn't totally mind because my girlfriend, Cassidy, dumped me like last year's cat litter when some college guy asked her out. At least being here keeps me from seeing her with the new guy, and also forces me to appear like I have some pride and not call her. And who knows? Maybe I'll meet someone.

I was picturing clubs with Euro trash nobility, riding on Vespas, lounging in French cafés and Greek taverns, and, of course, the occasional topless beach (although it is a well-known fact that European women aren't big on shaving their um, pitular area—I planned to look elsewhere). I thought at least there'd be some cool gardens, something outdoors.

I never imagined the "suckitude" I was about to experience—one big bus tour to every museum that offers a group rate. In Miami, where I'm from, we have maybe five museums, if you count the zoo.

Here in Europe, every Podunk town has ten or twenty. The bus pulls up in front of a museum and lets us out. Our tour guide, Trish, has this little blue-and-white flag with a picture of a bird on it, which makes walking behind her, the ultimate in humiliation. She walks backward to whichever great work of art the museum's famous for. The assembled peasants gawk for a full two minutes. Then it's off to the gift shop to spend our Euros on stuff we wouldn't pay two cents for if it was in the Walgreens back home.

It's not doing a thing to get my mind off Cassidy.

At least my friend Dez is here. Guess his parents wanted to get rid of him, too. I don't even know what country we're in now. One of those lame ones you don't learn much about in geography, like Belgium, or maybe one of the "L" ones. I don't pay much attention to Trish, but yesterday I heard her say the magic word: _coast_. We're near the beach. That's when I started formulating my plan.

I shake Dez awake.

"What the . . . what time is it?"

"Five thirty, man."

"In the morning?"

"No, at night. It's almost time for dinner."

That gets him up. But when he sees how dark it is, he slumps back on the bed.

"It's still dark."

Can't put anything over on Dez, at least not where food or sleep are concerned.

"Okay, I lied. But I need to get out of this Tour of the Damned and have some fun. That's not going to happen unless we can beat the seven o'clock meet-up time."

"Know what would be fun?"

"What, Dez?" I'm hoping maybe he has some ideas, since I know his parents roped him into this tour, same as mine.

"Sleeping."

"It's not like they're going to let you sleep in, anyway. Soon they'll be banging on the door, telling us to get ready. This way, you can sleep when we hit the beach."

"Beach?" Back home in Miami, I am a serious sun god. Now, I'm the color of marshmallows.

"Sure, the beach. Think of it, Dez. Topless French chicks."

"We're not in France."

"Okay, topless German chicks. Does it make a difference?"

"Will there be food?"

"Sure. There's a café across the street. We'll get breakfast and some sandwiches, but first we have to get out of here."

* * *

><p>Finally, I manage to get him out of bed. I'd actually sort of wanted to go look at this National Botanic Garden of Belgium (Belgium! That's where we are!), we passed yesterday on the way to Museum Number Three. I could see this huge giant sequoia from the road. Of course, we didn't have time to look at it. But I knew that Dez was way more likely to go along with me to the beach. At least it's not another dusty art museum, and maybe we can hit the garden on the way back.<p>

I drag Dez to the concierge desk to ask for directions.

"You couldn't have done that while I was getting ready?" He asks.

"You'd have gone back to sleep."

"You know, sometimes it's like you work at being a slacker."

"I prefer to spend my summer not working at anything." We have to stand there for a while, while the concierge guy makes time with the desk clerk. If he doesn't get over here soon, Trish might catch us.

"Hey, little help here . . ." I look at his nameplate. "Jacks?"

He ignores us.

"Hey! Don't want to take time from your busy schedule."

When he finally figures out that we're not leaving, he comes over.

"Which way to the beach, Jacks?" I ask.

"It is _Jacques_." He gives me that special glare hotel concierges always give you when they figure out you're American or that you don't speak the language, like he ate a bad niçoise salad. Like I'm supposed to speak every language in Europe. I took Spanish in school. Of course, we haven't been to Spain yet. At least, I don't think we have.

"The beach?" I repeat. "_La playa_?"

"_Le plage_," Dez tries.

"Ah, oui. _La plage_." We've pushed a magic button, and suddenly the concierge is our best friend and now speaks perfect English. "The autobus leaves at nine thirty."

"We can't wait until nine thirty, Jacks."

Jacques shrugs. "That is when it goes."

If we have to wait until nine thirty, we're going to get caught, and I'm going to get stuck in another museum. My girlfriend dumped me, my summer vacation is ruined, and this guy can't even help me have one decent day? Isn't it, like, his job to be helpful?

"Is there another bus, maybe? Is this, like, the completely lamest country in Europe?"

Dez nudges me. "Austin, you're gonna get him mad."

"Who cares? He doesn't understand me, anyway. Everyone in this country is—"

"Ah, you are correct, _monsieur_," Jacques interrupts, "and I am wrong. I have just remembered there is another autobus, a different route. A different beach."

I give Dez a look like, _see_?

"Would you write it down for us?" The redhead asks. "Please?"

"But of course." The concierge hands us a bus schedule with the routes and times circled. "You want to get off here and then walk to the east." He sketches a map. It looks pretty complicated, but at least the bus leaves in twenty minutes.

"Thanks," Dez says. "Listen, is there a place to get sandwiches?"

My cell phone rings. I check the caller ID: Trish, looking for us. I grab Dez's arm. "We've got to go."

"But I'm hungry."

"Later." I drag him away.

"Thanks," he yells to Jacques. "See you later."

Jacques waves, and he's actually smiling. He says some-thing that sounds like "I doubt it" but is probably just some weird French phrase. I pull Dez out the door just as I spot Trish stepping out of the elevator.

Luckily, she's already walking backward and doesn't see us.

* * *

><p>"Good thing we got food first," Dez says on the bus.<p>

"Yeah, you mentioned that." Actually, he has mentioned that seven times, once every ten minutes that we've been on this bus ride.

"But it is a good thing. Otherwise, we'd be starving. In fact, I'm thinking about breaking out one of the sandwiches now."

Dez brought enough sandwiches for a family of four for a week. I got a couple cans of beer (the legal drinking age here is sixteen!). Dez also ate a four-egg omelet, a stack of pancakes, and ten strips of bacon (the waitress called it the "American break- fast"). Plus, since he got it to go, he actually just finished eating about twenty minutes ago.

"Forget food for a minute. Doesn't this bus ride seem a little long to you? I mean, this is a small country. I brought my passport, but I wasn't planning on using it."

"It's long," Dez agrees, eyeing the bag with the sandwiches.

I pick it up and hold it shut so he has to listen to me.

"And isn't it going—I don't know—sort of in the opposite direction of the way you'd think the beach would be?"

"The guy said it was a different beach, but maybe he lied."

"I think that guy messed us up on purpose."

"You did say his country was lame."

"It is lame. So you think we're going the wrong way, too?"

"Maybe." Dez is looking at the bag with the sandwiches. "It's hard to think straight when you're hungry."

I'm about to give him a sandwich just so I can think when the bus driver announces that we've reached Jacques's stop.

"Finally. Time to get off."

"Does that mean I can't have a sandwich?"

"Think how good it will taste when we're sitting on the beach."

Twenty minutes later, not only have we not found the beach, we haven't even found the first street Jacques wrote on his map.

"It says go three blocks, then turn on St. Germain," Dez states. "But it's been more than three blocks. It's been, like, six. Maybe we should turn back."

I'm about to agree when I see a street called St. Germain. "This must be it."

* * *

><p>But the next street isn't where it's supposed to be, either, even when we've walked three times as far as the map says. "Maybe you're right," I say.<p>

When we turn back, nothing looks the way it did the first time. The first time, there were houses and stores and bicycles. Now there's nothing but trees and, well . . . nature everywhere I look. "What happened?" I say.

"To what?" Dez is munching on a sandwich.

"To everything—the town, the people?"

He wipes his mouth on his sleeve. "I didn't notice."

I see a little dirt road I hadn't seen before. I turn down it, gesturing to Dez to follow me. "Come on."

But this isn't where we were before, either. It's like every- thing just disappeared into a fog. Dez isn't noticing, since he's in a fog of his own, created by the sandwich. But then we run into something he can't ignore.

It's a solid wall of brambles.

"Now what?" I say.

"Go back."

"Back where? We're lost. This isn't where we were before. Besides, look." I gesture around me. "All this natural stuff. Back in Miami, if you had all this nature around, you'd definitely be near the beach."

In fact, the hedge looks a lot like bramble bushes in Miami. It has fuchsia flowers a little like the bougainvillea that grows there. The weird thing is that it must be three or four stories high.

"So where's the beach?" Dez asks.

I shrug. "Not back there."

"But this road's a dead end."

"I know. But listen." I cup my hand to my ear. "What do you hear?"

"Chewing," The redhead says.

"Well, stop chewing."

Dez finishes the last bite. "Okay."

"Now, what do you hear?"

He listens real carefully. "I don't hear anything."

"Exactly. Which means there must be nothing on the other side of that hedge—no city, no cars, just nothing. The beach."

"So you're saying you want to go through the hedge?"

"What have we got to lose?"

"How about blood? Those bushes look prickly."

It's true. But I say, "Don't be a wuss."

"Can I have another sandwich at least?"

I grab the bag from him. "After the hedge."

Fifteen minutes later, there's nothing on any side of us except brambles.

"I bet I look like the victim in a slasher movie," Dez says. "What's the French word for 'chain saw'?"

"It's not that bad. The flowers sort of smell nice." I inhale.

"Right. You can stay and smell the flowers. I'm going to head back to human civilization."

I grab his wrist. "Please, Dez. I want to go to the beach. I can't handle another day of the tour."

He pulls away. "What's the big deal? My parents are going to ask me what I did today."

"That's the thing. My parents won't. They won't ask me what I did the past week. They don't care what I'm doing. And I hate going to all those stupid museums. Looking at all that boring art makes my mind wander, and when my mind wanders, all I can think of is Cassidy kissing that frat boy."

Dez stops pulling. "Wow. That really hit you hard, huh?"

"Yeah." I thought I was just making stuff up to get Dez to do what I want, but I have this sort of sick feeling in my stomach. I'm telling the truth. My parents haven't called in two weeks, except once to ask me if I signed up for AP Government next year for school and this trip is doing nothing to make me forget about Cassidy. I see her face in every painting in every museum—especially that Degas guy, who painted girls with no faces at all. I can't get away from her.

"Yeah. I just want to go to the beach for one day. I need to be outside."

"Okay, buddy. Only you go in front."

So I go up front, taking the full scratchy brunt of the brambles for another twenty minutes—twenty minutes during which I don't think about my parents or Cassidy but only about the fact that if I lose too much blood, there'll be no one here to help. When we finally reach the other side, I stop.

"Wow," I say in complete awe.

"What is it?" Dez is still behind me.

"Definitely not the beach."


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own the story or the plot of **A Kiss In Time **by Alex Flinn. Nor do I own the characters. I have adjusted a few things to fit the show and my ideas. I will merge some of the chapters together as I see fit to move the story along. Also, I do not own the show or the characters in Austin & Ally. That is strictly the commercial product of Disney.**

**The next few chapters will center around Austin's viewpoint, and after that, they will be a combination of both Austin's and Ally's. I will distinguish which is which and will let you know in advance once I start. Thank you.**

Chapter Four:

Austin's POV:

When I was a kid, back when my family was still pretending to like one another, we took a trip to Colonial Williamsburg. It's this place where everything's like Colonial times—horses and buggies on unpaved streets. There's stuff like blacksmith shops, too. My sister, Hannah, and I had fun with the employees because if you ask them stuff like which way to Starbucks, they act like they don't know what you're talking about.

But it got weird after a while. You wondered if they seriously didn't know it was the twenty-first century. I was ready to go home at the end of the day.

The place on the other side of the hedge is sort of like that. I mean, not just old. Pretty much everything in Europe is old and falling apart and important, but this place takes historic preservation to a whole new level.

"Do you think it's, like, a theme park?" I say to Dez.

"No one here."

"Maybe it's just not open yet. Or closed. Is today Sunday?"

The streets are unpaved, and even if they were, they're barely wide enough to get one of those little European cars down. But the transportation here is horses, judging from how many are tied to hitching posts, sleeping.

There's not a McDonald's or a Gap anywhere, only one building with ALEHOUSE painted on it in peeling, old-fashioned lettering. And the plants look bad. Some are overgrown, but a lot of stuff is bare, like the grass died years ago.

"Definitely not the beach." Dez starts pushing through the brambles.

The brambles have settled into the same shape they were before we went through them. I do not want to go through those bushes again. Dez must think the same thing because he steps back.

"Maybe we should eat lunch first." Something about this place is really creeping me out. "Let's wait for a while. Who knows how long it will take to get back to civilization . . . and sandwiches." He thinks about it and gets this worried look on his face.

"Okay. Then we should get out of here."

He starts pushing through the brambles again. "Wait! Maybe we should start looking for a different way out or at least see if anyone around here has a chain saw."

"You see any people here?"

"There's horses. And they're tied up. That means there are people somewhere." The weird thing is, I sort of want to look around a little bit. This place is cooler than anything else we've seen on this trip. At least it's outside, and Trish isn't here telling us what to think.

"We should look for them." Dez glances around. "If there's people here, they're really not into mowing and weeding. But if you say so. . . ."

"I do."

He shrugs but follows me. We walk down the street, which is really more of a pathway with weeds and stuff growing on both sides.

I point to the alehouse. "Let's try in there."

He nods. "It doesn't look like the type of place where they'd card."

The alehouse has steps in front of it. When I put my foot on one, it squeaks and moves under me. I step on a better, less rotted part, but even so, it quivers and shakes.

"This is really weird, Aus. You think maybe the whole town died or something, and there's nothing but a bunch of dead bodies?"

I remember when we went to Colonial Williamsburg, they told us about all the diseases people got in those days, like yellow fever, black plague, and scarlet fever. Hannah and I joked that all the diseases back then sounded really colorful. But now it's kind of freaky thinking about some sickness taking out the whole town. Maybe Dez is right, not necessarily that everyone died, but maybe a lot did and the rest decided to get the hell out of here.

But I say, "That's stupid. There's no abandoned town in Europe. If there were, someone would turn it into a museum. They'd widen the streets and bring people here by the busload and torture kids on tours."

"I guess you're right."

"Of course I am." And to prove how right I am, I walk to the door. But I still can't bring myself to go in, so I look through the window. It's easy because there's no glass in it, and I remember that a lot of places didn't have glass windows in the old days, only shutters to pull down at night or if it got cold. I can't see much.

There's no light inside and nothing moving. We stand there so long that I'm almost expecting someone—possibly a ghost—to come up behind us and ask what we're doing here.

So when Dez says, "Come on!" I jump about three feet. He laughs.

"Not afraid of dead bodies, huh?"

"Nope." I push open the door. The room is dark. There are lanterns, but none are lit. It takes my eyes a minute to get used to it. Even so, I see there are people there, sitting on barstools, but they're really quiet. No music, no laughter, no talking, and when my pupils finally dilate, I realize the people aren't moving at all, like they're dead. But they can't be dead. If they died long ago in some plague or massacre, their horses wouldn't still be tied outside, and they'd be reduced to skeletons.

Unless they got mummified. I saw this movie once where this guy killed someone. He mummified her body and sat her in an upstairs window. You couldn't tell the difference unless you saw her face. I take a deep breath and let it out real slow, prepping myself to walk around and look at their faces. That's when it happens. One of them snores.

"What was that?" The redhead says. He's hugging the door.

"It sounded like a snore."

"A snore? Like they're sleeping? All of them?"

"I think so." I walk over to the side of one guy. He snores, and I see his stomach moving in and out. He's alive. He's definitely alive.

I'm saved! I don't have to touch a mummified corpse! I tap his shoulder. "Hey, bud." He doesn't answer. I shake him harder and yell louder. "Hey! Dude! Hey, you!"

Now that it's that obvious they're not zombies or anything, Dez steps forward and starts shaking a different guy. "We're sorry to bother you, but we're looking for directions." Nothing.

There are five guys on stools and the bartender asleep on the floor. Dez and I spend five minutes shaking, yelling, pulling, and practically dancing with them.

They're definitely alive, but they're totally asleep.

"I think we need to try another place," I tell him. There's only one person at the next shop, an old lady asleep with a bunch of falling apart hats on stands. We shake her, but she doesn't wake. We try three more places, and they're all the same.

"Freaky," Dez says once we step out of the greengrocer's. There was nothing in the bins, not a single grape or carrot. The grocer himself was napping on the floor. "Can we leave now? A grocer without groceries is just . . . wrong." He shudders.

I sigh. "I guess so."

But when I turn the corner, I stop.

"Whoa!"

* * *

><p>It's a castle.<p>

Not a modern-looking one like Buckingham Palace, with electricity and toilets (when we visited it, the plumber was there—his truck said THE DIPLOMAT OF DRAIN AND SEWER CLEANING—and Dez and I had fun joking about what the queen had done to stop up the drains), but a real castle, the kind that comes in a set with a bunch of plastic knights and horses. It could even have a dungeon.

"Check it out." I start toward it.

"Hey, wrong way. I want to go back."

"Suit yourself." I walk faster. "But I have the sandwiches."

"Hey!" He starts running after me, but he's got on flip-flops. I have sneakers, and I was on the football team at school, so I can definitely outrun him.

The castle is farther than I thought because it's bigger than I thought. It's big enough to put a whole city in. I finally reach it about ten minutes later. There's a moat around it full of brown, sludgy water.

"Oops. Can't go in," Dez yells from way back.

I walk around the perimeter until I see where the drawbridge is. It's open, and there's a castle door at the end of it. I start across.

"Are you sure you should do that? Someone might behead you."

"Come on, man. What are we going to do, go crawling back to Trish? This is the first interesting thing we've seen in the past three weeks. I just want to look around." At the door, I see two guards.

Surprise—they're sleeping. I grasp the handle and pull on it. It opens with a loud squeal. I step inside. We're in this huge room with three-story ceilings.

"Wow, it's like the ballroom in Shrek 2," Dez declares.

I nod and hand him a sandwich. It lightens the load, and we've still got six or seven more. To be safe, I hold on to the beer. "Hey, look." I point at a suit of armor standing in a corner. "Let's try it on."

"There could be someone in it." I jump back. I hadn't thought about that. I don't think the sleeping people around here look like they date back to medieval times, but better safe than sorry.

I slowly, gingerly lift the bill of the knight's face mask. It's empty. I breathe out. "Maybe this place won't be as freaky as the rest."

This is so cool. All the castles and towers we've been to, you're either not allowed to look around inside at all, or if you are, you just get to stand behind velvet ropes and see stuff in climate-controlled boxes. This place is real, even if it is a little dusty.

I start down a hallway that goes out to the side. I look in the first room. "Hey."

"What is it? The kitchen?"

"Better." It's an actual throne room like in the movies, and there are people in it, peasants maybe, waiting to see the king or something. The king isn't there, though.

"They're asleep like everyone else in this town," Dez speaks.

"But look." Two guards sleep off to one side. Each has a pillow in his lap. On each pillow is a crown encrusted with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. It's just like the stuff we saw in the Tower of London, only it's out where we can touch it.

"I'm trying one on," I say.

"Are you sure you should? What if they wake up?"

"We've practically stomped on these people, and they haven't woken up." Still, when I take the crown off its velvet pillow, I almost expect an alarm to go off or something. None does, and I place the crown on my head.

"How do I look?"

Dez laughs. "Kind of stupid."

"You're just jealous. Try the other."

"It's a girl's crown." Still, he puts it on.

We fool around, sitting on the thrones and patting the peasants on the heads.

After a while, he says, "We should take them."

I shake my head. I don't like the idea of stealing anything. "Let's look around first and see what else there is." We put the crowns back and go into more rooms. On the third floor, there's a bunch of rooms with nothing in them but dresses.

"Wouldn't you think this stuff would get eaten by rats and bugs?" Dez says.

"You see any rats and bugs? Maybe they're sleeping, too."

When we reach maybe the tenth room of dresses, the redhead announces, "This is boring. Let's try on the armor."

I'm about to say okay when I notice this weird little staircase going off to the side. I saw a turret when we were outside. I wonder if this goes up to it. "Let's go there first," I proclaim.

Before Dez can even protest, I start upstairs. I didn't think the staircase was very tall, but it curves around and goes higher. Then it curves again and again. When we finally reach the top, the door is closed. I open it and find a room with nothing but a girl, sleeping on the floor.

She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.

* * *

><p><strong>Seeing as I've updated my other two stories, I realized that it's about time to post a new chapter for this one as well.<strong>

**Similarly to Friendship on Fire, this story has not gotten as much reviews as I hoped that it would receive, and it makes me really sad. I want to know how you guys feel, even if it's only "Update". While I would prefer longer ones, I still do appreciate reviews that short.**

**So please, let me know how you feel. I really don't want to waste my time and efforts on this story if they're going to be fruitless and pointless when I get little or no responses from you guys.**

**I don't mean to sound rude or pushy, I just really want to know how you feel so I can improve myself as a writer.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own the story or the plot of **A Kiss In Time **by Alex Flinn. Nor do I own the characters. I have adjusted a few things to fit the show and my ideas. I will merge some of the chapters together as I see fit to move the story along. Also, I do not own the show or the characters in Austin & Ally. That is strictly the commercial product of Disney.**

Chapter Five:

Austin's POV:

I stare at her. I've never seen a human being who looks like her, and I'm from Miami, where good-looking people go to spawn. But this girl isn't just beautiful. She's perfect in a way that's unreal, like one of Hannah's Barbie dolls.

What I'm saying is, this girl is . . .

"Wow, she's hot," Dez exclaims when he finally reaches the door.

Yeah. That.

She's lying on the floor with these golden curls all around her, like someone arranged them that way. Her body, I can tell even in her long dress, is totally perfect. She's a little shorter than almost everyone else here and thin in all the right places with these great . . .

"Would you look at her?" Dez interrupts my thoughts again.

I am. I stare at the top of her dress, which she's really filling out, let me tell you. I feel this incredible urge to touch her, but I know it's wrong because she's asleep.

But the weird thing is, it's not her body I notice the most. It's her face.

Her skin is the color of milk with just the tiniest bit of strawberry Nesquik mixed in. Her eyes are closed, but I can tell they're huge, with long eyelashes that curve upward.

And her mouth. It's full and red, and her lips definitely don't look like lips that haven't been moistened in hundreds of years.

For some reason, looking at her makes me think of Cassidy. Not that she looks like Cass, because she doesn't. Cassidy's beautiful in a normal, human way. But, compared to this girl, she's total chopped liver.

And somehow, just looking at her, I know she isn't like Cassidy at all. She wouldn't dump someone for a guy with a cooler car.

"What are you, in love with her?" Dez aks. "You're staring like an idiot."

The weird thing is, I think I am.

_Stupid._

"She's asleep. You could . . ." He looks at the door. ". . . do anything."

"That's sick."

"You know you were thinking about it."

"No, I wasn't. That would be wrong."

"Right and wrong's getting kind of fuzzy for me. Was it wrong to ditch the tour? Was it wrong to lie to Trish? Was it wrong to sneak in here?"

"I guess." I keep looking at the girl. I can't stop looking at her.

"Come on. I dare you to touch her."

"Okay." I want to anyway. I lean toward her, wishing she'd wake up.

I reach down and touch one of her curls.

Soft. So soft. I comb my fingers through it to make it last. She stirs in her sleep, and I imagine she's enjoying my touch, but of course, that's impossible.

"Not her hair, dorko. She can't even feel her hair."

"She can't feel anything. She's asleep like the rest of them."

"So why not touch an important part?"

It's not because Dez says to. It's because I want to. I move my hand back up the length of her hair to her face.

It feels like—God, this is hokey—flower petals. Roses, maybe. I move my finger across her cheek, to her mouth, her lips. They're parted slightly, and suddenly, I can't keep from admitting it: I want to kiss her. Crazy, because ten minutes ago I was still completely thinking about Cassidy, but I really want to kiss this comatose chick. I lean closer.

"Not her cheek, idiot!" Dez leans down. "God, get out of the way."

"No!" I block him. It's impossible to say that I totally, like, respect this girl even though I don't know her. I can just tell she's someone special.

_God, I wonder if she's a princess!_

I stand. "Look, I want to kiss her, but not in front of you. Why don't you go downstairs and steal those crowns? The princess and I need some time alone."

"For real?"

"Sure." I can get him to put them back later. "But give me ten minutes."

"Okay, but I'll be back soon." He starts toward the door and then turns back. "Hey, you don't think it's really stealing when they're, like, never going to wake up?"

I sort of do, but I'm not the one doing the stealing, and I want him gone. "Of course not."

"Okay. See ya." And he's gone.

I'm alone in the room except for the girl. I touch her hair again, and her cheek, now that I can do it without Dez ragging on me. She sighs softly in her sleep. She's so beautiful; I wish she'd wake up so I could talk to her. But it's probably better this way. If she were awake, she wouldn't be into me.

That's when I think of _Snow White_.

_Snow White_ was Hannah's favorite fairy tale. Of course, being a boy, I thought it was lame. Still, she watched the DVD maybe a thousand times, so I couldn't help but know the story, which is about a princess who eats a poisoned apple.

Everyone thinks she's dead. But then the prince kisses her. She wakes up, and she and the prince live happily ever after.

Maybe I could wake her up.

Except, of course, I'm no prince.

And there's all those other sleeping people. That didn't happen in _Snow White_.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to kiss her. I'd feel less like a sicko if I think I'm trying to wake her.

I raise her up toward me. Her body is warm, and it's like nothing to lift her. Her dress is made of this soft velvet, and when I pull her close, I can feel her heartbeat.

I wish I could see her eyes, but her face . . . her lips . . .

It's kind of weird to kiss a girl if you don't know her name. But maybe I can make one up.

_Allyson_.

The name just comes to me. I don't know where I got it from. I've never known an Ally. Still, I'm sure it's the perfect name.

"Ally," I whisper.

She sighs in her sleep.

"Oh, Ally." I pull her toward me, one hand in her hair, supporting her head. I bring my face close to hers, and it's like I can see her whole life, being in this castle, isolated, wishing for something more. I don't know how I know it, maybe the same way I know her name. Allyson.

My lips are on hers. It's a long kiss. I hold her closer, feeling her hair, her body, her mouth, and then her hands in my hair.

_What the—?_

I don't want to stop kissing her, especially since she's kissing me back, even if it's in her sleep.

Still, finally, I have to pull away from her to breathe. So I do. "You're so beautiful, Ally." I look straight into her chocolate brown eyes. I've never seen eyes that pure of a color before.

"Thank you, my prince," she sighs.

Then the brown eyes widen.

"Who are you?"

And that's when she screams.

* * *

><p>She's awake! It really is like <em>Snow White<em>! Holy crap! But I'm no prince. I'm just this regular guy from America— a totally prince-free country—and she's still awake.

She opens her mouth to scream again.

"Don't scream." I put my fingers over her lips, not like a kidnapper or anything. "I'm not going to hurt you. Please don't scream." Not that it would matter if she did. I mean, there's no one awake to hear her.

She pushes my hand away. "Explain yourself! Who are you? Why were you . . . kissing me?"

"I'm Austin. I wasn't kissing you, exactly. You were passed out. I was giving you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation." I lie because I don't want her to think I was attacking her or something.

"Mouth to . . . what? What are you saying? What is that?"

Geez, she's stupid. Beautiful, but dumb. Isn't that always the way?

Unless they don't have mouth-to-mouth where—or _when_—she's from.

"Austin? Are you one of the dressmakers? What is that you are wearing?"

I look down. I have on kind of junky clothes, an Old Navy Fourth of July flag T-shirt from last summer, and jeans. The shirt's all torn up from going through the bushes. At least I pulled the jeans on over my swim trunks at the last minute. "It's a flag T-shirt."

She looks confused at the word T-shirt and squints at it. "Flag? From what country?"

"The United States. America. _Yo soy Americano_."

"Where is that?"

"Other side of the ocean? Head west?" Maybe she hit her head.

Her eyes light up with recognition. "Oh! You mean Virginia?"

Which is weird. Colonial Williamsburg is in Virginia. Maybe all these people who pretend they're historical figures know each other, like some sort of club. "Yeah, sort of. Not Virginia, exactly. Florida. But they're both in America."

"And this is your flag? It is a custom, then, to wear it on your chest?"

It seems kind of weird when you put it that way. "Not always."

"I see. So you have come from . . . ?"

"Florida."

"Then you must be here to show me dresses, for you are certainly not visiting royalty." I'm not sure I like the way she says "certainly," but I let it go. The girl has definitely had a bad day. "What dresses?"

Ally gets a sort of faraway look on her face, and then stands. "Now I remember. Before I . . . fainted, I suppose, I was looking at dresses, such beautiful dresses, each the exact shade to accentuate my eyes."

She looks at me, and I notice again what gorgeous eyes she has. I imagine what it would be like to have those eyes focused on me.

"They are gone," she states.

"I didn't see any dresses. I swear."

"But you were not here, either. It was just me and one other person. A boy." She smiles. "No. That was earlier. But then there was a lady, an old woman. It was she who brought the green dresses. She was spinning thread. She told me I could make a wish."

Ally stops speaking and turns away from me, toward the window. "But why can I not remember? It just happened."

"Maybe I can help you," I speak up, kneeling beside her. "Close your eyes."

She gives me a look, like maybe I'm trying to trick her, but she closes them. With her eyes closed, it's like the lights have gone out, and now it's nighttime.

"Okay," I start. "Now, try to picture it. You're looking at the pretty dresses, and there's an old woman there. What does she look like?"

"I could tell she was once beautiful. She had black eyes that glittered like onyx."

"She said you could have a wish, and then what?"

She places her hand over her eyes. "Oh, I have a headache."

"What's the next thing you remember?"

She breathes in deeply, and then sighs. Finally, she says, "A dream. It must be, for I was kissing a prince, my prince. He was telling me how beautiful I was."

"Your boyfriend?"

"No! I have no friends, certainly none who are boys. I have been nowhere, met no one." Ally shakes her head. "It was but a dream. Then I opened my eyes, and you were kissing me." She looks down a moment, examining something on her skirt. It looks like a spot of blood.

And suddenly, her eyes open fully, wider and browner than before. "Oh, my!"

"What?" I back away. "What is it?"

"A kiss! You say I was sleeping, and you happened upon me?"

"Yeah."

"Yes. And did you think I was quite beautiful?" I grimace, and she says, "Oh, never mind. Of course you did. Everyone agrees that I am utterly stunning."

"Modest, too." I mutter loud enough for her to hear.

But she ignores me. "So you saw me, and I was so beautiful that you immediately fell in love with me."

This girl's pretty full of herself, but it's not far from the truth. "Well, not—"

"You fell in love with me, and you leaned over and kissed me. Love's first kiss. And when you kissed me, I woke immediately. Is that true?"

"Yeah."

And suddenly, she begins to cry. "Oh, no. Oh, no. I am a fool. Old pudding-faced Lady Brooke was right. I am a stupid girl and ought never to have been trusted for even a minute on my own."

"What are you talking about?" I want to put my arm around her or something, but I get the feeling that wouldn't be a good idea.

"The curse, stupid!"

"Now I'm stupid? What happened to you being stupid, and what curse?"

"The curse. The curse. Everyone knows about Malvolia's curse. Oh, my father will kill me. They will probably lock me up in a convent!" She begins to sob again, and then seeing that I am still not with the program, she says, "Before her sixteenth birthday, the princess shall prick her finger on a spindle and die."

"But you're not dead."

"No. The fairy Flavia changed it so I would merely sleep. The whole kingdom would sleep, to wake only when I was awakened by true love's first kiss."

"Uh-huh." She's nuts.

"The old lady was Malvolia, do you not see? She came with the dresses, gained my trust. She had probably been watching me all my life. She brought with her a spindle. She knew I would make a wish, and when I did . . ."

"You're saying she stabbed you with that spindle thing?"

"Exactly. It is the curse. I have made the curse come true." And she starts blubbering harder.

"Hey, calm down," I say. "It's going to be okay."

Now she stands and begins pacing. "They warned me so many times. It is practically the only subject upon which I conversed with my parents. It was their worst fear, and it has come true."

I try to think of what my parents' worst fear is—me not getting into college, maybe. Or having to go to one of those community colleges that's **near** a good school, so they could just tell everyone "Austin went to Boston" or whatever. They'd die.

But I say, "Exactly. It's over. You went to sleep, and you're awake now because of me and my magical kiss. Your parents will probably be so happy you're okay that they won't even be mad."

"Do you really think that?"

"Sure. It's like this one time I totaled my car. My mom was driving by, and she saw the wreck. She was so happy I wasn't dead that she didn't even . . ." I stop. The princess is staring at me like I'm speaking in tongues. "Anyway, I'm sure they'll just be okay with it. You're their little princess, right?"

She's stopped crying, and now she nods. "Perhaps you are right."

"I know I am." I answer smugly.

"What is the date? I need to know how long I have slept."

I check my watch's date feature. "It's June twenty-third."

"Oh, that is not so bad then. A month. I missed my birthday party, which is a shame, and they will need to explain to the guests, but still . . ."

Her eyes fall on my watch. "What is that?"

"A watch." She picks up my wrist, examines it, and then holds it to her ear.

"A clock? On your wrist? How strange." She pulls back from me and examines my clothes, the flag T-shirt.

"What is that?" She points to the numbers on the shirt.

"The year. Old Navy puts the year on all their flag T-shirts. It's sort of a racket, I guess—you have to buy a new one every year."

"That . . . is . . . the . . . year?" Ally looks sort of sick. Her face is suddenly almost the same color of green as the dress she is wearing.

"Well, I got it last year. We always get them for when we go watch fireworks. But I probably won't get one this year, come to think of it, because—"

"That is the year? The year!"

"Well, last year."

She begins to shake. "Oh, my . . . oh, no." She crumples back onto the floor, as she was when I first saw her. "It cannot be true. It cannot."

I kneel beside her. "What's the matter now? I thought you were fine."

She looks at me, then starts screaming. "Fine? Fine? I have been asleep nearly three hundred years!"

Outside on the stairs, I hear a commotion, people running, and then yelling.

"Stop! Thief!" Dez appears at the door. "Aus, we gotta go. They're all awake, and they're after me for stealing the crown!"

_Crap._

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you all so much for the reviews from last time. Again, I'm sorry if I sounded demanding. I just really want to know how you guys feel and I really don't feel like wasting my time on a story that no one will review, when I can try writing other ideas that I have.<strong>

**I'm looking forward to reading your reviews for this chapter, because after this, the real fun begins and the chapter will be combining Austin's and Ally's POVs.**

**Also, to the guest who noticed how I was using Mindy and Trish interchangeably, that wasn't an accident. In the book, the tour guide is named Mindy, but for the purpose of this story I changed it to Trish. So thank you for pointing that out and allowing me to fix it.**

**I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and I will see you all next time!**

**~ Hannah**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I do not own the story or the plot of **A Kiss In Time **by Alex Flinn. Nor do I own the characters. I have adjusted a few things to fit the show and my ideas. I will merge some of the chapters together as I see fit to move the story along. Also, I do not own the show or the characters in Austin & Ally. That is strictly the commercial product of Disney.**

Chapter Six:

Austin's POV:

Things get a little crazy then. There's Dez at the door and then two guards with actual swords. When they come in, he starts yelling, "I don't have them! Search me if you don't believe me—just don't behead me!" One of the swords swings around, and he jumps. "Get those things away from me!"

Then a bunch more people show up. Most of them are holding fancy old dresses.

Next is a woman, who I'm guessing is the one the princess called "pudding-faced Lady Brooke," because her face does look as beige and bland as vanilla pudding. Ally runs to her, screaming with anguish. "Lady Brooke! I have done it! I have done it!"

"Done what, dear?" Lady Brooke says.

"Ruined everything. I am so sorry."

Dez has managed to edge away from the guards in the confusion when the dressmakers showed up. Now, he tugs my arm. "Come on, man."

I start to go, glancing back at the princess, who's still wailing away.

"Wait!" the princess screams, loud enough to make everyone in the room stop what they're doing and look at her. Everything is silent, and I realize that no one but Ally and I know that they've been asleep for hundreds of years.

Finally, pudding-faced Lady Brooke says, "What now, dear?"

The princess points at me. "He cannot leave."

"Why not?"

"Because he has kissed me!" Every eye in the room turns on me. The guards notice Dez again, but this time they grab both of us.

"Have you defiled the princess?" one guard demands, getting close with the sword.

"No . . . I mean, I don't think so."

"No!" Ally says. "I am not defiled in the least. But he must stay."

"Who are you?" Lady Brooke asks.

"I'm Austin Moon . . . from Florida . . . I guess I broke some spell. No need to thank me. If you'll just call off your guard before he removes something, I'll get going."

The princess lunges toward me. "You cannot go. You have broken the spell. Do you know what that means?" When I don't answer, she says, "It means you are my true love."

"Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" Dez whispers.

I ignore him. "True love? But I don't even know your name."

"My name?" She looks surprised. "Oh, well, that is easy enough. Everyone knows that."

"Except me." _Once you tell me, can I leave?_

"Very well. It is probably best to have a proper introduction." She looks at Pudding Face and says, "Lady Brooke."

Lady Brooke nods, although she doesn't look happy about it, and gestures toward me. "Austin Moon, of Florida, you are presented to Her Royal Highness, Princess Allyson."

_Allyson._

"It is customary to bow at this time," Allyson says.

"Your name is Allyson? I didn't know . . ."

"And yet, that is what you called me when you . . ."

"I know." I shake my head. "I mean, I didn't know your name, but somehow I guessed or something. It was weird, like someone told it to me."

She nods. "True love. It was meant to be."

"Look," I say, "I might want to go out sometime, but as far as true love—"

"But you woke me! And I can only be awakened by true love's kiss. And besides, I am a beautiful princess. How could you _not_ love me?"

_Easy._

Dez looks at the princess, then at the hands of the guards who are holding him, and then back at Allyson. "So, um, Your Royalness, do you think you could maybe let us go?"

"Yeah, it's—ah—getting late." It's actually only twelve thirty, but who knows if these people can even tell time. "Our tour group's waiting for us."

"Highness, this one is a thief!" the guard behind Dez says. "And if this person was with him, he must be an accomplice."

"I'm no thief," I say, "and neither is Dez."

"The crown was in his hands!" says the guard.

"He didn't take anything, and I'm the one who broke the curse and saved you all. Doesn't that count for anything?"

"What curse?" Lady Brooke says. "What is he talking about?"

The princess ignores her. "Yes. Guards, you must unhand this gentleman at once. He is an honored guest and a friend of my future husband. You must both stay for supper."

_Future husband? Does she mean me?_ "Excuse me, but I'm not—"

"Allyson. . ." Lady Brooke says. "You cannot mean to invite this . . . this . . . commoner to supper. It is the eve of your birthday ball."

Ally starts to cry again. "No, Lady Brooke. Do you not understand? I have touched a spindle! A spindle! We have all been asleep for a great while and this . . ." She gestures toward me. "This commoner has awakened me."

"You have touched a spindle, you say?" Lady Brooke's puddingy jaw is hanging.

The princess nods.

"A spindle, you say?"

"Yes!"

Lady Brooke cradles her forehead in her hands. "I have left you alone for ten minutes, and you touched a spindle and slept for . . . for . . ."

"Three hundred years."

"Ah!" Lady Brooke looks like she's been stabbed. "Oh, not again, not again . . ." She recovers. "And you have been awakened by a . . . a . . ."

"Really great guy?" I volunteer.

Ally nods. "He will stay for supper." She looks at me. "You _will_ stay for supper?"

I nod. I can handle it if that's what it takes for them to let me go—even though they'll probably serve squirrel or something. "That's fine. Just let me call the hotel and tell them where we are." I take out my cell phone.

"What is that?" Princess Ally says.

"A phone." She keeps staring at it. In fact, everyone stops what they're doing, gathers around, and stares. "You can, um, talk to people on it."

Except I can't get a signal. Duh. There's no tower here. Suddenly, it dawns on me what the princess said: _I have been asleep nearly three hundred years!_ If that's true, this place is like a time warp. Princess Ally really did screw things up.

And all I'm thinking is, _How did they go so long without eating or peeing?_

Everyone's still staring at the phone, which lights up and makes beeping noises. Think how jacked they'd get if it actually worked.

"We have to go there," I say. "They'll be waiting for us."

"But surely your friends must have known of your journey," Ally states.

"We sort of sneaked off."

"Then we must send a messenger," Ally declares. "Simply tell me the name of the inn in which you are staying, and it shall be done."

Problem one: I have no idea where the hotel is. Problem two: There's a huge hedge around the whole country. Problem three: I am not—and I mean not—marrying this princess.

"Does this help?" Dez pulls a postcard out of his pocket. It has a photo of our hotel on the front. This causes another spasm of activity as everyone has to gather around to look at the photo. Finally, he says, "The address is on the back, I think."

Ally hands it to Pudding Face, who looks dangerously close to fainting. She examines it a moment, then says, "That is two days' journey."

It seemed pretty far but not two days.

"Nah," Dez says. "It was about two hours on the bus."

Pudding Face looks puzzled. "Bus?"

"Yah. It's sort of like a car only . . . you got the wheel here? Has that been invented yet?"

The princess straightens her shoulders, and even Lady Brooke seems to have recovered enough to glare at the redhead.

"I guess it has," he mumbles. "Well, a bus is sort of a wheel thing with a motor, and fast." He looks at them. "Okay, I can see you don't get the bus thing. Maybe I could, like, take your guards out and show it to them if, um, they'd let go of me and get their swords out of my butt."

Ally nods. "Do as he says."

The guards look disappointed, but they let go of Dez, and he gestures to them to follow him. "Hey, do you guys have a chain saw?" He is in the middle of saying as they leave.

When he is gone, Ally turns to me. "Well, then, we must find you some proper clothing. If we are to marry, you must meet my father." Then, in case I don't get it, she adds, "The king. So we can arrange the wedding."

Lady Brooke finally topples to the ground. I'm pretty close to joining her.

I should have stayed with the tour!

* * *

><p>Ally's POV:<p>

My life is ruined.

I dispatch Lady Brooke to find Austin a room and some clothing. Then I go back to the task I began, I thought, this morning, but apparently almost three hundred years ago—choosing dresses for the ball. There is no reason not to have a ball. Yes, I am three hundred sixteen years old (give or take a year) rather than sixteen years old, but since I have neither starved to death, nor died of thirst while asleep, it seems as though my body has been somehow suspended in time all these years. Besides, Austin would not have kissed me had I been a crone. Therefore, tomorrow will still be my sixteenth birthday, and I am still entitled to my party, so I still need dresses.

The bad news is that the most beautiful dresses were supplied by someone whom I now know was an evil witch bent upon destroying me because she was annoyed at not being invited to a previous party (I will say, Father and Mother were rather shortsighted in not simply inviting her—what would it have cost, an extra pheasant and perhaps some turnips?), so I will need to continue my search.

I venture into the first, then the second room. I know I should go looking for Mother and Father, but I simply cannot face them yet. I do not want to tell them what I have done. They will never forgive me.

It is in the third room that I see Father. He looks distraught.

"Allyson, I am so glad to have found you."

Although, truthfully, he does not look glad in the least.

"I have terrible news," he continues. "The ball must be canceled."

"But why?" Although I have some idea why. He has discovered my folly with the spindle, and he means to punish me. I prepare to bawl, possibly to wail. I am an excellent wailer.

But Father says something even more surprising. "I do not know, my pet. It seems there are no guests."

"No guests? Whatever do you mean?"

"It is the queerest thing. The lookouts saw the first ships off in the distance at nine o'clock. By ten thirty, some were on the verge of entering the harbor. But then they simply disappeared."

"Disappeared?" I repeat what he has said to give me time to think.

Father nods. "I fear, daughter, that there is something afoot here, that we might be on the verge of war, or worse, that I may have been victimized by black magic, the dark art of the witch Malvolia."

_Malvolia. Oh, no_. In an instant, I understand what happened to the ships. They did not turn around, nor were they bewitched, not really. They may have tried to enter our harbor. But when they did, it was not there. The kingdom was obscured from sight by a giant wood, as Flavia said in her idiotic spell. They thought they had gone to the wrong place. The guests, the visiting royalty, even the special prince who might have been my husband, they have been dust for centuries, and I am merely a three-hundred- sixteen-or-so-year-old princess with absolutely no prospects whatsoever.

It will take a great deal of tact to explain this to Father.

"I am sorry, my dear daughter."

_He is sorry_. Would it be possible simply to feign ignorance of the whole situation? Pretend I have no idea what happened to the ships, no comprehension of what caused—I am certain—numerous additional changes to the kingdom?

But I remember Austin's clothing and the strange flashing object he carried with him, Dez's talk of buses. Certainly the world changed during our three-hundred-year hibernation, as surely as it changed during the three hundred years before that, and as soon as Father remarks the changes, he will understand their cause. If he does not, Lady Brooke will be certain to tell him.

"Father?" I touch his shoulder.

"Yes, my princess?"

"I believe . . ." I take his arm, sweet as I can, and guide him toward a chair. "I believe you should sit down."

He does, and when he does, I begin to tell my story.

"I touched the spindle, and then at the next moment, a commoner named Austin was waking me up," I conclude.

Father is silent.

"Father? Are you . . . is everything quite all right?"

"You say you touched a spindle, Allyson? A spindle?"

"It was no fault of mine."

"No fault of yours? It was every fault of yours." He looks, suddenly, like God's revenge against murder. "Have we taught you nothing? How many times have we told you—cautioned you—about spindles? It was the first word you learned, the last thing you heard before bed at night, the one lesson of any import: Do not touch spindles. And you forgot it—_ignored_ it?"

"I said I was sorry."

"Sorry? Do you not understand that we are ruined?"

"Ruined?" Father is making quite a fuss. "Certainly it is inconvenient, but—"

"Inconvenient! Ally, do you not understand? How could you be so stupid?"

I feel tears springing to my eyes yet again. He has never spoken to me in this manner. "Father please, your voice. Everyone will hear you."

"What does it matter? If, as you say, we have all slept these three hundred years, we are ruined, destroyed—you, I, the entire kingdom. We have no kingdom. We have no trade. We have no allies to defend us. Mark my words; it will not be long before everyone realizes that my daughter is the stupidest girl on earth."

"But . . . but . . ." I can hold back my tears no longer, and when I look at my father, I see something horrible. He is struggling to hold back his own. My father, the king, the most powerful man in all Euphrasia, is weeping, and it is my fault, all my fault.

"It was a mistake!"

"You cared for no one but yourself, Allyson, and we are paying the price. It would have been better had you engaged in any other youthful indiscretion—running away, even eloping—rather than this one. This has affected everyone, and it is unforgivable."

My father's words strike like daggers. He would rather see me gone than have me do what I did. He hates me.

"I am sorry, Father."

He looks at the floor. "Perhaps, Ally, you ought to go to your room."

Yes. Perhaps I should go and never come out—which is probably what is planned for me, anyway. I nod and start for the door. Then I remember something I must tell him, although at this point, I would much rather not. Still, if Father despises me, I have nothing to lose. I have already ruined everything.

"Father?"

"What is it now, Ally?"

"The boy, the one who woke me from my sleep . . . I have invited him to stay at the castle and to have supper with us."

Father stares at me. "Supper?"

"Yes. It seemed the proper thing to do."

He makes an attempt to straighten his shoulders but fails. "Yes." The word comes out as a sigh. "Yes, I suppose it is."

And then, before I can say anything else, Father turns on his heel and leaves. I wait a minute to make sure he is gone before leaving the room myself.

* * *

><p>I am passing through the guest chambers on the way to my own room when I hear a voice.<p>

"Excuse me? Allyson? Um, Your Highness."

I stop. Austin! They must have placed him in this room.

I approach the door. "Yes?"

Indeed, it is him. This commoner, this boy I am supposed to marry, this nobody who has ruined everything. And yet . . . he is wearing more appropriate clothing, in which he looks handsome, yet quite uncomfortable at the same time, as befits a member of the nobility. "Um, sorry to bother you, Princess."

"No bother." Although, in truth, I would much rather be alone with my grief. My face burns. Soon, everyone will know of my stupidity and humiliation that I have ruined the kingdom, and soon _I_ will be the most ruined of all.

"Your dad seemed upset."

I nod, unable to speak. So he had heard.

"But what he said," Mr. Austin Moon continues. "about the hundred years' sleep?"

"Three hundred."

"Right. Sorry."

"Three hundred! We have slept three hundred years, and we are ruined, and it is all my fault." I try not to sob again. Were I a few years (or a few hundred years) younger, I could throw myself on the floor with impunity, but as it is, I simply stand there, gasping for breath.

Austin stands there, too, looking down. I wonder if he heard Father call me the stupidest girl on earth. Probably the whole castle did. Finally, he says, "Can I get you something, like a Kleenex?" I have no idea what a Kleenex is, but he reaches into his pocket and procures a bit of paper, sort of a paper handkerchief.

I take it and sniffle into it. I try not to snuff too loudly. However, I have been crying very hard. So finally, I have to give in and snort like one of the horses so that, in addition to being the stupidest girl in all Euphrasia—nay, the world—I might also be the most disgusting.

To his credit, the blonde pretends not to notice, and his kindness sends forth the torrent of tears I have been trying to avoid.

When I finish, he says, "My dad can be kind of a jerk, too. But I didn't think princesses had to deal with that."

"I am not even certain I am a princess any longer. Can I still be a princess if Euphrasia is no longer a country? It is all my fault! I am so stupid!"

"You're not stupid. You messed up. I mess up all the time."

Messed up? I move away from him, wondering if my face is blotchy, if I am hideous now, in addition to being stupid and disgusting. But I catch a bit of my reflection in the mirror attached to the wall. No, Violet's gift has held true. I am still beautiful. Perfect, in every way save one.

He continues. "From what I'm getting, you had a curse placed upon you—that before your sixteenth birthday, you would prick your finger on a spindle. Right?"

I nod. "Right."

"My dad, he's a businessman, and he's always looking at the wording of things. So that's how it was phrased? 'Before her sixteenth birthday, the princess shall prick her finger on a spindle . . .' not 'the princess might prick her finger' or 'if she is not careful, she will'?"

I nod. "But I was supposed to take care. Mother and Father always said—"

He holds up his hand. "Meaning no disrespect to them, either. I guess they were trying to protect you, but I don't think you could have kept from getting pricked with the spindle if it was part of the curse. It had to happen."

"But . . ." I stop. I rather like the way this young man is thinking. In fact, he is quite handsome for a peasant. "Do you really think so?"

"I do." There is conviction in his eyes. "This witch put that curse on you, and that was that—you were going to touch it. Maybe she even enchanted you to _make_ you touch the spindle. It was your destiny."

"Destiny." I like the sound of it, particularly because it means that this whole fiasco is not my fault.

"Yeah, destiny, like how it was Anakin Skywalker's destiny to be Darth Vader."

I have not the slightest idea what he is talking about. "But that does not change the fact that Father believes me a fool and thinks it is all my fault that our country is ruined." I remember what Father said earlier, about how he would rather I had run away and eloped. I gaze at Mr. Austin Moon. He is tall, and his brown eyes are quite intoxicating, and in that moment, I see my escape. "Do you think perhaps . . . ?"

I cannot ask it.

But he says, "What, Your Highness?"

His eyes are kind as well.

"Ally. Call me Ally, for I am about to ask you to . . . take me with you."

"What?" He backs away three steps, as if he has been pushed. When he recovers himself, his voice is a whisper, and he glances at the door. "I can't."

"Why not? If it is because I am a princess and you are a commoner, this matters not. I am an outcast now. Father despises me. They all . . ." I gesture toward the window, indicating the ground below, the land, the people. "They all shall hate me soon enough. Their crops are dead. Their food has rotted. They should be long dead and rotted themselves, but because of me, they are alive still, only the whole world has changed around them."

"But I'm only seventeen. I can't be responsible for a princess. I can barely get my homework done."

"Why ever not? Seventeen is a grown man. Surely, you must be learning a trade—like blacksmithing or making shoes."

"Sort of. I go to school. That's what everyone does now."

Now. Everything is different now. But I must change it. I was destined to prick my finger upon a spindle, and I did. But there was another part of the curse. I was to be awakened by true love's first kiss. That kiss was Austin's. Therefore, he must be my true love, even though he seems rather lazy and unpleasant, and I wonder how he could have gotten through the wood to the kingdom. He does not seem to appreciate the great opportunity he has been given, marriage to one gifted by the fairies with beauty and grace and musical talent and intelligence. I must make him realize it. I must make him my true love, if I am going to fulfill my destiny.

"Well," I say, "in any case, you must join us for supper."

"Okay," he says. "Supper's okay. Marriage—not so much."

I pretend to agree, but I know that I must make him fall in love with me, whether he wants to or not.

* * *

><p>Austin's POV:<p>

I'm wearing something halfway between pants and tights, a red jacket, a ruffly shirt, and boots, all too small. At least they don't wear kilts in this country.

I crack the door (which is ten feet tall) open and look into the hallway.

A guard rushes toward me. "May I help you, sir?"

"Um, is there any food around here?"

The guy looks down. "I shall check, sir." He doesn't move.

I close the door, my stomach growling like an ATV pulling through mud. It's been four hours since I kissed the princess. I know that from checking my cell phone, which is now useful only as a clock. I turn it off again to save the battery. It's not like there's any place to recharge it.

Of course, Dez took the sandwiches with him when he ditched me to go to the hotel. Bet he doesn't come back. I kept the beer, but it's probably not a good idea to drink it on an empty stomach. I wonder if this is just a really fancy dungeon.

I go to the window for about the tenth time. There's no chance of escaping out the door. The hallway is crowded with people waiting to do my bidding. But no one wants to help me escape (and, really, where could I go in these pants?). The window's not much better. It's at least four stories up and made of this thick glass like in churches. No, my best bet is to have dinner, then sneak out when they all go back to sleep.

Of course, after three hundred years, they're probably pretty well rested.

I should have stayed with the tour group. Sure, the museums were boring, but at least the people were from this century.

Someone knocks at the door.

"Come in!" They knock again.

The door's so thick they can't even hear through it. I walk across the room and open it. "What?"

"Begging your pardon, sir." It's some servant guy in an outfit that is—I need to mention—way less froufrou than what they gave me to wear. "His Majesty apologizes for the delay in getting supper. There have been . . . difficulties."

My stomach growls loudly.

I'm scared to find out what these people eat. My mom's a real freak about germs and salmonella, and this doesn't seem like the type of place that has sanitary cooking facilities or even a decent oven. Didn't people used to die at, like, age thirty-five in the 1700s, or even younger? And didn't they have plagues with rats and stuff?

If I have to die, I hope I don't die in tights.

* * *

><p>What we're having for dinner is meat. Lots of meat and mushrooms and strawberries.<p>

Ally's parents are there. Her father—the king—is a plump guy with a really short gray hair, and he actually kind of looks like a version of Humpty Dumpty that I once saw in Hannah's storybooks years ago. Except he's not broken into pieces, although I'm sure that'll be me in a few hours.

"I apologize for the fare," he's telling the group. Besides the princess and me, there's Pudding Face, the queen (an older version of Ally), and a bunch of other people introduced as lords and ladies. There are also two women Ally says are fairies, but I must have heard her wrong. "But, you see, all our crops died when my daughter put us to sleep for three hundred years, and the food we had has long since spoiled."

Ally looks away, but I can see her hands are trembling.

She looks great, though, especially in that dress she's wearing, a green one you can see down. She's stopped crying. She sits beside me and keeps staring at me with those eyes of hers.

"I am sorry, Father," she says. When the king doesn't answer, I see her glance toward the door.

I decide to change the subject. "So where'd you get the mushrooms . . . um, Your Highness?"

"Your Majesty," Ally whispers.

One of the fairy women turns to the other, and when she does, I see that there are wings sprouting from her back. She whispers, "_Him? He's_ her destiny?"

"Shush," whispers the other.

"That is quite all right, Allyson," the king says. "I am certain this young man is unused to dining with royalty in . . . Florida, is it?"

I nod.

"A Spanish colony, if I recall, and rather a wasteland. Has it changed much in three hundred years?"

"Um, a little."

"The hunters found the mushrooms in the forest," the king continues.

"Are they okay to eat?" I ask. It's probably a rude question, and actually a hallucinogenic mushroom could hit the spot right about now.

The king shrugs. "Does it truly matter at this point?" The princess flinches when he says that. The king takes a large forkful of the mushrooms, chews, and swallows them. We all watch. He doesn't fall over or barf or anything.

"They are acceptable," he says finally.

I don't ask what the meat is, but Ally says, "Is not the peacock excellent?"

"A bit tough after it has been drowsing three hundred years." The king glares at her. "But it will have to do."

_Hoo-boy. And I thought my parents were rough. This guy's acting kind of like a spoiled brat. But then, that's how his daughter is, too. _

Again, I try to change the subject. "This is peacock?"

"Certainly," the queen says.

"Wow." I've tried it now, and it's sort of gamy and tough, like duck in a really bad Chinese restaurant. I move it around on my plate.

"Do you not have peacocks where you are from?" Ally seems even more eager to change the subject than I am.

"We have peacocks. We don't eat them, though."

"What do you eat, then?" She asks.

I think about it. "Lots of stuff. People in America are from all over the place, so we eat pizza from Italy . . ."

The princess sighs loudly. "I have never been to Italy."

". . . hamburgers . . ."

"I have not been to Germany, either."

". . . French fries . . ."

"I have not been to France."

". . . tacos from Mexico . . ."

"I do not even know where that is. Would it not be grand, Austin, to go off and see the world?" She gazes at me, smiling.

"Allyson . . ." The king seems to be having some trouble with the chewy peacock and the chewier mushrooms. Still, he opens his mouth to speak to her. "That will be enough."

"Enough of what? All my life, you have made me stay in this castle, doing nothing, all for the fear of spindles."

"Obviously, we did not do enough for fear of spindles. Perhaps we should have locked you in a cage."

"Lester . . ." The queen's voice is whispery.

"It is the truth."

"No, it is not!" Ally bursts out. "There was nothing you or I could have done to prevent it. The curse said, '_shall_ prick her finger.' It was preordained—my destiny. You would have been better off had you pricked my finger yourself, making certain a prince was on hand to kiss me. This is all your fault! _Your_ fault!"

Wow, its weird hearing her quoting me, like I'm a lawyer or something.

Nah. I'd never be a lawyer.

"If that is the case," the king says, "you would have been awakened by your true love. Where is he, then?"

Ally points to me. "Here! Austin. He loves me. He has to love me."

There is silence. The lords and ladies stop in midchew. The king is obviously not used to being yelled at. From the fairies, I hear a small voice say, "He could _not_ be her true love. But how could my spell have gone so wrong?" With a small sigh, she turns into a small, birdlike creature and flies off. The other follows.

"Hey," I say to King Lester, "you want to listen to my iPod?"

The king looks shocked. "What—or who—is an iPod?"

"It's something from the twenty-first century. You can listen to music on it. Do you like music?"

"I adore music," Ally jumps in. The king sighs.

"I used to—three hundred years ago." He glares at his daughter once again.

"Here." I take it out. I'm glad this getup they put me in has pockets and that I thought to put the iPod in one of them. I wish I had something classical, maybe Gregorian chant. The closest I have is classic rock, some Beatles songs my sister likes. I find "Yesterday." "You put in these ear buds."

"In my _ears_?"

"Sure. That way, you can listen to music without anyone else hearing it."

The king looks like he still doesn't get it, but he sticks the ear buds in. "Now what?"

"You push that. Here. I'll do it for you." I lean over and push it for him. Obviously, these people are button-challenged.

"Can he hear us?" Ally whispers.

When I say no, she turns to the queen. "Mother, please make him stop being so cruel. This is not my fault."

The queen shakes her head. "Oh, Allyson."

"Then you are against me, too? I hate this! I wish I could simply run away." She turns to me. "How did you get here? To Euphrasia?"

"I already told you, I came through the hedge."

"No. Before that. How did you get to Europe from . . . Florida?"

King Lester takes out the earbuds. He sighs. "How I long for yesterday."

Which is a line from the Beatles song.

"You mean to say, young man," he continues, "that in your century, they have found a way to preserve this man's singing and put it into a minuscule box, all so that one can listen to music without the bother of having it performed, without having to dress and gather and dance, that in your time—which, by unfortunate accident, is now my time as well—each man can live entirely in his own world?"

I nod. "Cool, isn't it?"

The king hands me back the iPod. The lord across from me looks like he might want to have a listen, but he doesn't dare ask. "I should have been dead three hundred years ago," the king continues. "I should have . . ." He glares at Ally again. ". . . and I _would_ have, had you merely kept away from spindles as you were told."

"By all the saints!" The princess cries.

"Ally," her mother cautions. "Do not swear."

"I _will_ swear, Mother. I am done being obedient. Obedience has done me no good. Father may be peevish to me, but I will not stand to see him being so to our guest. We are very much in Austin's debt. Had he not kissed me—"

"He what?!" the king roars.

_Uh-oh. Did he not know that?_

"K-kissed me. That is how I happened to awaken. Surely you must—"

"You!" The king points a trembling finger toward me. "You, a commoner, dared to take advantage of my daughter's sleeping state to . . ."

"I didn't know she was a princess, Your Highness . . . Majesty . . . sir!" I push my chair aside. "I'm sorry. I should get going." I take a few steps backward and stumble into a servant holding a tray of mushrooms. I'd better get out of here before they come up with the idea of—oh, I don't know—_stoning_ me to death.

"No! You will go nowhere. You have defiled my daughter."

"I didn't! It was a kiss. A little one."

"Yes, you are right, Father," Ally says, shocking everyone, including me. "He defiled me."

"What?!" I yell. "I didn't . . . I barely touched you!" I want to scream at her, but I try to keep in control. Hurling insults would probably get me in more trouble than I am in already. "Tell the truth, you . . . brat!" Oops. That slipped out.

She glares at me, then continues. "It is true. I am quite sullied. There is nothing for me to do but marry this young man and go to Florida with him immediately."

"Marry you? Ma—" I shout before getting cut off.

"Impossible!" the king declares.

"Why not?" Ally says. "All the princes I might have married are long dead. You do not wish me in your presence."

The king nods at the guards behind me, and I feel hands on my arms. "This young man is an offender of the most contemptible kind, a rogue who would take advantage of a young lady's—a princess's—sleeping state to . . . desecrate her. Death is too good for such an offender."

_There it is. Death. _

"But I didn't . . . I wouldn't touch her if you paid me!"

"He must be brought to the royal dungeon to await a suitable punishment."

I plead with Ally, even though I can barely look at her, I'm so mad. "Can you say something to him? Please."

She shrugs. "I do not know what to say."

"How about, 'he didn't sully me'? That would be a good start."

"He will not listen to me. He thinks me a fool." She begins to pout.

"You are a fool!" the king roars. "To think that we hoped and prayed and protected you, only to have you stupidly ruin the kingdom! I wish we had remained childless!" To the guards, he says, "Take him away!"

And the next thing I know, three guys who look like they could work for the WWE are dragging me down a very long, dark flight of stairs.

To the dungeon.

* * *

><p><strong>I combined three chapters, in order to speed things up a little bit. Plus, I liked the way the last chapter I added ends, so I decided to include it in my chapter.<strong>

**Anyway, Austin's in the dungeon and that definitely can't be good. **

**Let me know your thoughts and feelings.**

**I will see you next time.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do not own the story or the plot of **A Kiss In Time **by Alex Flinn. Nor do I own the characters. I have adjusted a few things to fit the show and my ideas. I will merge some of the chapters together as I see fit to move the story along. Also, I do not own the show or the characters in Austin & Ally. That is strictly the commercial product of Disney.**

Chapter Seven:

Austin's POV:

My mom will be happy. I'm seeing something not many people get to see in Europe. An actual dungeon.

It's not like I'd have pictured a dungeon. Maybe that's because it's so dark I can't see my own froufrou tights, much less any beds of nails or cat-o'-nine-tails, or that thing where they stretch people. It just seems like a cold, damp, dark room, like my grandmother's basement in New York.

And it's quiet. I never really thought about quiet before, but at home, there's always the stop-start of the air-conditioner, the buzz of the computer fan. But there's nothing except silence here, and I have nothing to do but think about it. The walls are thick around me, and the ceiling is thick above me, like being dead. There is no one here but me.

And the rats.

The more I get tuned in to the silence, the more I realize there _are_ noises after all. Little ones. Little ones like feet. Scurrying feet.

I bet the rats are really hungry after sleeping for three hundred years.

_Don't think about this! _

The guards didn't take away my iPod, so I turn it on. It starts in at the same song the king was listening to.

_I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday. _

Hoo-boy, did I. And I _did_ something wrong. I kissed some stupid, spoiled brat princess who couldn't even trouble herself to tell her father I didn't "defile" her. And now I'm stuck here, rotting, maybe forever.

And why did I do it? Because she was hot-looking. You'd think I'd have learned from Cassidy.

I switch to another song. Rap. Loud. One of those songs about what some guy's going to do to some other guy's girlfriend. Good stuff.

Maybe they'll let me out tomorrow.

Maybe they'll decapitate me.

No. There are rules about how you have to treat prisoners. I read about that in school. Geneva Convention.

Except I'm not sure the Geneva Convention's been invented yet here.

Also, that's just for prisoners of war.

I am a prisoner of _love_.

I close my eyes and try to sleep. But I can't, so I just close my eyes and try not to hear the rats in the darkness. It sounds like a big one's creeping up.

I feel red-hot liquid on my arm.

"Ouch!"

_Are they torturing me? Boiling me in oil? _

"Be quiet!" a voice whispers. It's Ally.

"But that hurt."

"It is but a candle. The wax dripped. Do not be such a baby."

"I'm in a dungeon!"

Suddenly, she's all, "Oh, you poor, poor dear . . . yes, I do apologize for that. Father is in a peevish mood."

"You don't say. How'd you get down here?"

"Everyone is asleep, except the guard. He let me pass."

"But are you allowed down here?"

"I am a princess. I am allowed wherever I wish to go."

"You'd better go," I say. "I know how it is. You come in here, and then in a few minutes your lady-in-waiting or whatever notices you're missing. You lie about what happened . . . and all of a sudden I don't have a head."

"Do you wish to escape?" She questions, knowing full well that I do.

"That would be a yes."

"Then you must speak to me. If not, I shall be forced to—"

"Don't . . ." I hiss.

"I will. I shall be forced to scream, and everyone will come running. I will tell them this knave has abused me grievously. The kiss will be nothing in comparison. I will be pitied, and perhaps it may affect my marriage prospects, but they were slight in any case. You, however, shall be stoned at sunrise . . . but only if you do not let me stay and talk to you."

A chill runs through me when she says "stoned at sun- rise." Do they actually do that? In any case, she's clearly not going to stop them.

"You know, you're not as sweet as I thought you were," I say.

"I am sweet."

"Could have fooled me."

"I am. Sweet and compliant. Or I was, my first sixteen years, the most docile, malleable creature one might ever imagine. I would have made someone a fine wife. But then everything changed. Or rather, nothing did. I am grown up, and I am still being treated like a child, or an animal. Do you know what it is to be treated as chattel?"

I don't even know what a chattel is. "Sorry. I was too caught up in the whole being-locked-in-a-dungeon thing."

"To be treated like you have no choice in what you do in life?"

"My dad wants me to take over his business when I grow up. He's a developer, like he builds communities where all the houses look alike. I hate it, but he won't take no for an answer. I guess it's irrelevant, though, if I'm going to die here."

"You wish to leave, then?" When I don't answer, she says, "Well?"

"That was a question? Of course I wish to leave."

"Then I shall help you leave, but upon one condition."

_I think I know what the condition is. _

"You must take me with you." She grabs my hand and squeezes it.

_And we have a winner. _

I know I should keep my mouth shut, but I say, "Yeah, about that. I know I'm supposed to be your true love and marry you and all, but I'm only seventeen. It might be perfectly normal to get married at seventeen in your time—your old time. But no one gets married that young now."

She laughs. "Marry? I do not wish to marry you!" She laughs so hard I'm worried stuff will start flying out of her nose.

She doesn't need to laugh _that_ much. "You don't?"

"Hardly. Let us not forget that you were the one who kissed me."

"Oh, I get it. It's because I'm not a prince."

She sighs. "It does not signify. I do not wish to marry you, and you do not wish to marry me, but I do wish you to take me with you when you go."

"Look, Princess . . . Your Majesty . . ."

"Ally will do."

"Ally will _not_ do. Don't get me wrong. You're beautiful, and there're a lot of guys who'd love to take you wherever they're going."

"No." The brunette states.

"No?" I question.

"No. Those others are all dead. Every suitable consort is dead and has been for nearly three hundred years."

"But your father will never let you go away with me, especially if we're not married."

"No, of course he will not."

"Okay, so we understand each other." I try to shake off her hand, which is difficult with her grasping mine. "Anyway, it was nice meeting you. Good luck with the princess thing. Now, if you can just get your father to let me out of here—"

"No!" She's still holding my hand. "I am not asking to marry you, nor am I going to ask my father's permission to let you go or to leave with you. I wish to sneak out, under cover of darkness, and leave Euphrasia. I wish to go with you, not as man and wife, but merely as friends, travel companions, the sort of happy-go-lucky chums about whom rollicking old ballads of the road are written." She grips my hand even harder. "You owe it to me."

"I _owe_ you? How do you figure?"

"You woke me up. You ruined everything. Had you not come along with your intrusive lips, someone else would have woken me, someone who loved me and could have saved me and Euphrasia. A prince. Or perhaps we would have slept forever."

"And that would be a _good_ thing?"

"It seems preferable to waking and having everyone know that I am the ruin of my kingdom, to having my father despise me. Austin, you desire to escape. I wish to run away. I thought we might help each other. And if you don't . . ." Her voice trails off.

"And if I don't?"

"Well, then, I shall run away on my own, venturing out into the cold, cruel world full of buses and telephones and other matters of which I know nothing. I have no map and no money, save a large quantity of priceless jewels."

_Did she say jewels? _

"Without you," she continues, "I might be robbed or . . . worse."

"And me . . . ?"

I feel her shoulders go up. "I suppose you shall rot here . . . although once Father finds out I am missing, he may have you riding the three-legged mare."

"What?"

"The gallows. He shall order you hanged."

_She had to say the _H_ word. _

And that is how I end up running off with Princess Allyson.

* * *

><p>Ally's POV:<p>

Helping Austin escape is simple work. At first, I think to trick the guard by saying I saw a mouse and asking him to come nab it, so Austin can escape, or perhaps bribe him with one of the many necklaces in my jewel case. But when I see who the guard is, I know what to do.

One advantage of being forever in my parents' custody is that I have been privy to many secrets of the castle, secrets discussed in my presence, simply because I was always there. From this, I know such tidbits as which upstairs maid is joining giblets with which footman, which coachman was arrested for beating his wife with too thick a stick, and which groom stands accused of bilking an ale draper.

I also know that the guard at the dungeon door is a drunkard.

I suspect that the bag upon which Austin kept so close a hold earlier may contain ale.

"What is in your bag?" I ask when he finally agrees to accept my help.

"N-nothing."

"This is no time to be secretive. You are imprisoned, and I suspect that you have the item, more precious than jewels, that may buy your freedom. Give me the ale."

He tells me where to find the bag, and I find what is needed—six bottles full. When the guard grasps what the contents are, he fairly weeps with joy, and I know it will be short work. I need only wait until he has consumed the beverage, and then, when drunkenness causes his jowls to droop onto his ample chest, I steal the key to secure Jack's freedom.

"Took you long enough!" The blonde says when we issue forth from the castle door.

"Shhh!" I whisper. "And hurry."

"Easy for you to say," he whispers back. "You're not carrying anything."

It is true. I took the trouble to secure his other possessions and those, along with my clothing and jewel case, present a heavy burden. But _I_ am certainly not going to carry anything. He is the man, and I am the princess. "Go as slowly as you wish, but I am told that ale-induced sleep is not of long duration. If the guard wakes—"

"Okay, okay." Austin trudges faster. When he has gone a short way, he says, "What's in here, anyway?"

"Only the items necessary for our journey."

"Which are?"

"Gowns . . . and my jewels. I have no currency, so I brought the contents of my jewelry box." He mutters something I cannot understand, something about credit cards.

"Excuse me? Would you prefer to return to the castle . . . to the dungeon?"

"No. That's okay."

Now that I have made my escape and aided Austin in making his, I must make him fall in love with me—even though he detests me. I lied when I said I did not wish to marry him. A necessary lie. Marriage to Austin is my destiny, just as it was my destiny to prick my finger upon a spindle. I had hoped that my destiny would make me happy. However, he is not being very cooperative. Hence, the lie.

I would think it should be short work to make Austin love me. After all, I am quite beautiful. But the fact is, I have never made anyone fall in love with me before.

Still, I must marry him. For if I do so, it will show that it was all predestined—my spindle-pricking, the kiss, and our inevitable happily-ever-after. Once he falls under my spell and we marry, Father will have to acknowledge that what happened was not my fault. Perhaps then he will love me again.

But, on the other hand, if he does not fall in love with me, then—well—Father must be right. None of this was destiny. It was my fault.

Oh, I prefer not to think about that!

"Do you wish me to help you to carry some of that?" I ask, to convince him that I am nice, even though I think it entirely unreasonable to expect a princess to carry anything.

But he says, "That would be great."

"All right. I just thought that since you were so big and strong, you would be able to handle it all." I place my hand upon his shoulder.

"Well, you thought wrong. Here. Carry the jewelry box. It's heavy."

He shoves it into my hands and continues walking.

* * *

><p>Austin's POV:<p>

I trip for about the fifteenth time on the overgrown trees and bushes (and, once, a pig).

"God, this is the darkest place I've ever been."

"It is nighttime," Ally points out unhelpfully.

"Yeah, but where I come from, we have lights at night."

"We do, too. They are called stars. They are quite romantic."

Like I'd want to get romantic with her. When I stopped to change out of that monkey suit they gave me, she spent the whole time whining about how it was improper for me to disrobe in her presence, even though I went in the bushes to change. And I'm back to carrying the jewelry box, because when she was carrying it, she slowed to a crawl. "No. Not stars, better than stars. Lights in the houses and outside on the streets."

"Fire? We have had that for quite a while here as well. We Euphrasians are not as primitive as you might believe."

At least they've discovered fire.

"Electricity," I tell her. "See, there was this guy, Benjamin Franklin. He was a little bit after your time, maybe fifty years, and he was American. He discovered electricity one day when he was out flying a kite in the rain."

She chuckles.

"What's so funny?"

"It sounds a mite foolish to fly a kite in the rain."

"He did it on purpose. He was trying to discover electricity."

"If he had not yet discovered it, how did he know he would discover it by flying a kite in the rain? He must have gotten very wet, and he sounds very silly."

This girl is totally annoying, and I don't even really remember the whole story about Ben Franklin. We learned it in fourth grade. Still, I say, "He wasn't silly. He discovered electricity, and a hundred years later, a guy named Edison—another American—invented the light bulb. So now we have electricity, and if you were sneaking out of the castle in the dead of night, you'd at least have a—"

"Watch out!" She screams just as I bonk into something large and wooden. A tree? Yep. Roots. Bark. Really big trunk. It's a tree. I just crashed into a tree.

I rub my forehead. "How'd you know that was there? Was it there in your time?"

"In my time, we can see ahead of us. I suppose we are used to darkness." She laughs.

"It's not funny."

"Oh, I am sorry. In my time, a man running into a tree was considered the height of amusement, indeed." She giggles. "But I suppose everything is better in your time."

I rub my forehead again; to show that it still hurts and that I don't appreciate her laughing. "Well, yeah. Let's see . . . we have electricity, indoor plumbing, fast food, cars, airplanes, computers, movies, television, and iPods. Yeah, I think it's pretty much better."

"You think so?" Her voice raises an octave. "Well . . . we have things in Euphrasia that are better than what you have now."

"Like what? Chamber pots? Indentured servants? Bubonic plague? Name me one thing you had in your time that's better than what we have."

"Love!" she cries. "Respect for one another. In my time, people did not go around kissing other people they did not love and had no interest in marrying. In my time, a man who did such a thing would be considered a cad and thrown in the dungeon for his crime. In my time, ladies were respected!"

"If your time is so wonderful, you should go back there!"

"I cannot. You have ruined everything with your selfish, selfish lips!"

"I'm selfish? I'm not the one who touched the spindle."

"You said that was not my fault!"

"That was before I knew you. I changed my mind after I saw what a self-centered brat you are! You probably did it on purpose, just to ruin things for everyone else!"

"Oh!" She stomps her foot.

"That's right. Stomp your foot! Brat!"

"I shall never speak to you again!"

"Good! I'll enjoy the quiet."

"I shall . . . I shall go home!"

"Good! Go! That's exactly what I want!"

She stops walking for a second, and I think she'll turn around, that I'll actually be rid of her. I keep walking. Maybe I should throw her jewelry box on the ground. If I don't, she'll probably accuse me of stealing it.

But a moment later, I hear her footsteps, running to catch up.

"Forget something?" I say.

"I cannot go home. You know I cannot."

"Why not? They'll get over it. You're their little princess."

"They will not 'get over it'! All is ruined! I must go with you—distasteful though the prospect may be." She starts walking.

_I'm_ distasteful. I like that. I'm not the one who begged her to go with me. "I could just ditch you, you know? I don't have to take you with me."

She gasps. "A gentleman would."

"A gentleman of your time, maybe. They sound like saps. In my time, we don't think girls are fragile flowers. We think they should be responsible if they mess up—just like guys."

"All right, then. You will take me with you because, if you do not, I shall scream. I shall run to the nearest house and cry to the people there—my subjects—and they will come out with pitchforks and torches. They will hold you until my father comes."

She has a good point, I guess—even though she makes it like a brat. I look around, and I can see houses full of people—extremely well-rested people who will probably rush to defend their princess, since they don't know what she's really like.

And, the fact is, I shouldn't have kissed her. I know it's wrong to take advantage of girls who are passed out. If I hadn't done it, I wouldn't be in this mess. So, okay, I'll take her across the border. That's it, though. After that, she's on her own.

So I say, "Okay. Come on. But take back the jewelry box. I don't want anyone to think I stole it if they catch us together. And go faster."

She starts to protest but then says, "Oh, all right."

We keep walking. I wonder how far we are from the border or whatever that giant hedge is.

I'm about to ask Ally when she says, "Why _did_ you kiss me?"

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't know I'd wake you."

"That is not what I meant. I meant why did you kiss me? I was supposed to be awakened by my true love's kiss, and then we were supposed to marry."

"I got that."

"So if you did not love me, why did you kiss me? Someone else might have, if you hadn't."

I hear her implication, _someone better_. I shrug.

"What does that mean?"

I forgot she can see in the dark. "I don't know. I just wanted to. In my time, we sometimes just kiss for fun."

She doesn't answer for a minute. Then we both say, "I like our way better."

She reaches toward me to touch my forehead. Her hand is cool and soft. "Does it hurt very badly, where you hit the tree?"

I pull away. I don't want her touching me, even though it feels good. "Ouch."

I want to ask Ally why she kissed me back, if it was so horrible, but I'm not speaking to her. Besides, maybe someone will hear. Someone with a big dog. Or a dragon or something. So we trudge along, and the only sound I can hear is my feet hitting the dirt and the dirt hitting my feet, over and over with no light in sight.

After about a thousand more footsteps, we reach the hedge.

* * *

><p>Ally's POV:<p>

I am trapped in a bramble bush and have been for the past hour! I am bruised. I am scratched. I am bleeding. I can see nothing on any side. I hear nothing but my thoughts.

And Austin is no closer to falling in love with me than before. If anything, it is worse. When I tried to touch his forehead—his forehead!—he pulled away. He must think me a very silly young girl.

I _am_ a very silly young girl.

Father loathes me. Mother is disappointed. My suitors- to-be are dead.

And now I am stuck in a thicket with a boy from a country of which I have never heard, who is wearing a costume suspiciously resembling brightly colored undergarments.

And I have reason to believe that everyone else where we are going will be dressed thus.

A thorn nearly jabs me in the eye.

"Ouch!"

"I told you it was prickly. You have to go in the direction the branches grow." Austin has been pushing ahead of me, doing a poor job of parting the branches so I can make my way through. The oaf obviously has no idea how a princess should be treated. "This isn't even as big as it was when we first came through it. It seems to have shrunk."

"Yes. That was part of Flavia's spell. She said that after the spell was broken, the kingdom would become visible to the world again. I daresay the hedge is shrinking."

He does not answer this. I do not think he believes in fairies. Or spells. Or, certainly, that he is my destiny. Still, he has taken me with him. I should be patient, lest he leave me in the middle of all this. And he is to be my true love, no matter what he thinks.

"I apologize for complaining," I say. "It—this hedge— is not what I am used to."

"I think you should go back."

I note that he does not say that _we_ should go back, only me. He wishes to be rid of me, like everyone else.

"You know," he continues, "it's not going to be easy out there. It would be better if you went home."

I sigh. "It will be difficult anywhere, but I prefer to go somewhere where no one knows me. I want to go somewhere princesses do not exist."

"Yeah, sure you do," he says.

"It is true." At least, I think it is, although it will be hard to be a commoner. They have to do a great deal of work, and sometimes they smell bad. "I want to go someplace where everyone is not angry with me, then."

He laughs. "I get that. People are always mad at me, too. They have this weird idea that I'm a slacker." And then, suddenly, he stops pushing. "Hey!"

"What?"

Austin moves aside and draws my hand toward him. "We made it."

I emerge from the brush. I can see his face because, even though it is still nighttime, there are lights in the distance, lights almost like daylight but twinkling like stars.

It is as he said. It is wondrous!

We have walked at least a mile since pushing through the hedge. Rather than bringing my jewels, I might have been better off stealing a sturdy pair of boots. But I dare not complain. Finally, we reach the edge of the wilderness, and Austin says, "We should find someplace to hide you until morning."

"Hide? Why?"

"This may come as a shock to you, but in the twenty- first century, girls don't dress like that. It'll freak people out."

I examine Austin's attire and shudder to imagine what ladies must wear in his time. Brightly colored corsets, perhaps?

"I cannot wait here," I say. "What if they see me?"

"If you hear someone coming, you could hide."

With no other argument, I voice my greatest—my real—fear. "How do I know that you will not abandon me here?"

He shrugs. "You don't. I was thinking about it, actually."

"You were?" There is nothing I can do if he leaves. Nothing. Now that we have escaped, I cannot make him stay.

"Yeah, but I'm not going to. If I'd wanted, I could have left you in the bushes. Or back there, when you were walking so slowly because of your shoes. But I didn't."

"Why not?"

He shrugs. "Don't know. I feel sort of sorry for you, I guess. Besides, this is the most adventure I've had since I got to Europe."

"Truly?" Despite myself, I thrill at this flattery. I have spent little time in the company of boys. But what if it is merely a trick to get rid of me? He is being nice now, but I still remember that he called me a brat.

"I won't leave. I feel sort of . . . responsible." He thinks of something and reaches into his pocket. "Here. Take this."

A present! I take the object from him.

"It's a telephone," he explains. "You can talk to people on it."

I recognize it from before. "But it did not work."

"It will now. Watch." He takes it from me once again and presses several numbers. He waits.

"Dez," he says. "Her Royal Highness wishes to speak to you." A pause. "What? Tell them I'm puking my brains out. I had some bad _crème brûlée_ last night. . . . I just told you, I'm with Ally . . . we ran away after she got me out of the dungeon . . . dungeon. . . . It's not like you did very much to help me when I was trapped in a dungeon. . . . Soon. Okay. Just . . . here. Talk to her. I'm showing her how to use the phone."

He hands me the object . . . the telephone.

"Hey, Ally."

I shriek and drop it. It bounces once, and then falls to the ground. Austin grabs it.

"What's the matter?" He asks.

"Your telephone! Your friend Dez is inside it."

The blonde shakes his head. "Geez."

"Is it . . . witchcraft? I expected him to sound far away, but he is inside it!"

Austin speaks into the telephone. "You still there, Dez? She's freaking out." He looks at me. "He's not in the phone."

"He is."

"Nah." Into the phone, he says, "Tell her where you are, Dez." He hands it to me.

"I'm back at the hotel, trying to sleep for once. I gave your guys the slip last night. They couldn't get through the hedge with that horse-drawn carriage. And then, when I tried to tell the police to come back and get Austin, they didn't believe me about Euphrasia."

"They knew nothing about Euphrasia," I say.

I look at Austin, and he shrugs, then takes the phone from me. "Cover for me, Dez, huh? I'm leaving her with the phone. Don't let anyone call me. Okay?" A pause. "A few hours. . . . Hey, can you call it once, so I can show her how it works?"

He hands it back to me.

An instant later, the phone begins to jump about in my hand and another man's voice—not Dez's—begins to shout from it. He sounds so angry.

"_Do it to me! Do it to me!" _

I cannot help it. The phone leaps from my hand, and I begin to scream. "Who is that? What is he saying?"

"That's my ringtone." Austin catches it nimbly. He speaks into it. "Dez, you there? Yeah, she's a little freaked around technology. Call back in a sec and I'll put it on vibrate . . . yeah, I know."

I have the distinct impression these young men are making jokes at my expense.

"You need to lighten up," he says.

"Lighten? Nothing is heavy."

"It's an expression. It means chill . . . don't take everything so seriously." Austin does something to the phone, then hands it back to me. "Okay. It's gonna move around. When it does, _don't throw it_. Just open it up, say hello, and _don't throw it_. Okay?"

I nod.

"What are you _not_ going to do?"

"Throw it." I smile. He thinks me a simpleton. Perhaps I am.

The blessed thing commences vibrating and, once again, I am seized with the urge to toss it aloft. I restrain myself. "What now?"

"Open it."

I do.

"Now hold it to your ear and say 'yo.'"

I hold it to my ear. "Yo?"

"'Sup, Ally? Will you tell Austin he owes me big-time?"

This I repeat to Austin, although I have no idea what it means. He shrugs and checks his watch. "We should go. Say good-bye to Dez."

"Good-bye."

"Now, close it up."

Austin finds me a place in some trees. He buries my jewels under some leaves, in case of robbers. It must be very dangerous in his time, if a young princess cannot go out safely in her gown and jewels. He leaves the telephone. "Don't answer if anyone else calls."

"How shall I know?"

Austin begins to explain some new, difficult concept that, apparently, even a buffoon like Travis has mastered in his time. My eyes glaze over, as they do when Lady Brooke reads to me from the Reverend Phelps's _Sermons for Young Ladies_. He must see it, for he says, "Forget it. No one's going to call, anyway."

And then he leaves.

* * *

><p>With no book or other form of entertainment, I while the time away by listening to the calls of birds. When I was little, Father taught me to pick out the tune of a spar- row, the morning song of a lark. I miss Father and Mother. Still, as I watch the sun journey higher up on the horizon, I appreciate that, for only the second time in my entire life, I am alone, blessedly alone, with no one to tell me what to do or what to wear, no one to have to be polite to. Nothing.<p>

But I do not wish to be alone, not entirely. Now that I am finally alone, it feels . . . lonely.

Soon, the lark's song ceases. Hyperion continues his journey across the sky, and I become aware of other sounds, not merely birds, but a cacophony of something like metal clanking together. It is like nothing I have ever heard in Euphrasia. Suddenly, I realize I am afraid to know what it is.

Never have I been afraid before. I miss home. I even miss Lady Brooke.

I could return.

The castle is waking, noticing that I am not there. Soon, they will send out search parties. There will be panic, accusations made, rewards offered for the safe return of their much-beloved princess. It is like something in a book.

And if I creep back through the bushes and am found, scraped and battered after many hours' absence, Father may be too relieved to be angry. All will be forgiven. And I shall spend the remainder of my days under the constant supervision reserved for little children and the feeble-minded.

No.

I can never go back, only forward. I must go to Florida, to my destiny.

I stare at the horizon once again, and my vision blurs. I have been up all night, rescuing Austin, fighting the brambles. Perhaps it would not be a terrible idea to close my eyes a spell. . . .

I am awakened by vibrations. At first, I jump, believing someone has found me. Then I remember. The telephone. _Do not throw it_. I pick it up, open it. I see a word. _Cassidy. Cassidy_? What is Cassidy? A jewel? I press the button.

"Hello?"

"Who is this?" a female voice demands.

It is surely not Austin. What am I to do?

"Hello?" the voice repeats.

I recover myself. "Yes?"

"Who is this?"

"Ally," I say, leaving out the princess part.

"Where's Austin?"

"I do not know, exactly. He went to purchase clothing for me, you see, and—"

"He went to buy you clothes?"

"Yes."

"What time is it there?"

Has this angry young lady called Austin's telephone strictly to ascertain the time? "Have you no clock?"

"Listen." The voice is extremely loud, and I am forced to hold the telephone away from my ear. "I don't know who you are, or why you have Austin's phone, but he is my boyfriend, and—"

Boyfriend? What is a boyfriend? Perhaps it is something like a beau. "Is he engaged to you, then?" I hope not.

"What? No. Of course not."

"Oh, what a relief. He is my true love, and you do not sound very nice."

"What? Listen, you . . ." And then, strangely enough, she calls me a female dog.

She continues talking. She is vile and coarse. And then I realize that Austin told me not to speak with anyone else, and here I am, speaking.

"I beg your pardon, what did you say your name was?"

"I didn't. It's Cassidy."

"Cassidy, I cannot go on being insulted by you. Austin may be trying to call."

"Why would he do that?"

"We have run away together. I must go."

I close the phone as Austin taught me. A moment later, it begins to vibrate again. This time, however, I see the name Cassidy and know not to answer it. I am quite proud of myself for having learned this.

* * *

><p><strong>Please let me know your thoughts on this chapter! Also, I don't mean to sound demanding, although I probably do, but I want more reviews! So please take the time to let me know your feelings. I really appreciate it!<strong>

**~ Hannah**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I do not own the story or the plot of **A Kiss In Time **by Alex Flinn. Nor do I own the characters. I have adjusted a few things to fit the show and my ideas. I will merge some of the chapters together as I see fit to move the story along. Also, I do not own the show or the characters in Austin & Ally. That is strictly the commercial product of Disney.**

Chapter Eight:

Ally's POV:

It is close to noon now. I cannot go back to sleep, and the sun is blazing. Why _do_ we wear so many clothes?

Austin has not called.

Perhaps he has abandoned me to be eaten by wolves or whatever is making that noise.

Perhaps I should leave.

Perhaps I should go into the city and find a bus— whatever that may be—and sell my jewels myself and live on my own. Perhaps I—

"Hey." It is him.

"Oh, thank goodness! I thought you had left me to die!"

"I wouldn't do that." He hands me a small sack of some sort, made of a smooth blue material. It has writing on it which I do not understand. GAP.

"What is this?"

"Your clothes."

"They fit in there?"

It is more horrible than I imagined.

Austin laughs. "Girls don't wear ball gowns anymore, Princess—not even to balls."

I open the sack. The horror continues. Men's trousers, a green piece of fabric, and two objects which might be some sort of tools. How am I to make Austin fall in love with me when I shall be dressed in such ugly clothing? "I will be disguised as a man, then?" I ask, holding up the trousers.

He glances at my bosom and shakes his head. "They're women's clothes. Try them on. You'll look hot."

"With so little fabric, I shall more likely be cold." But I hate to hurt his feelings, so I say, "Very well. Where is my dressing room?"

He gestures toward the trees. "I'll turn around."

"See that you do."

It is very difficult to dress without a lady's maid. There are so many buttons to unbutton, stays to unlace, and of course I cannot ask Austin for assistance. When I am finally done, I am quite winded. I put on the little shirt (at least it is green), then the trousers. Finally, I add the tools, which are apparently meant as shoes.

I stand a moment, allowing the breeze to touch my naked arms. I would be quite comfortable, were I not worried that Austin has dressed me up as a hedge whore.

"Are you quite certain this is all?" I ask.

"Can I see?"

I sigh. "I suppose."

He turns. "Wow, you look great. Most girls would wear a—ah—bra with that, but they didn't have them at the Gap."

"What is a bra?"

"It's for your . . . ah . . ." He blushes red and gestures toward his chest. "Um . . ."

"Never mind. I understand." I remember my manners. I need to be nice to this boy, so he might fall in love with me. "I . . . I thank you for the clothes."

He nods. "We should get going." He starts to walk, not looking at me again.

The shoes are even worse than my old slippers. They slap against my foot with each step and pinch my toes. I am still carrying my jewelry box and now my old clothes, too, as Austin did not wish anyone to find them abandoned. But soon we reach a clearing.

"Princess Allyson, welcome to the world."

* * *

><p>"The world" proves to be a rather loud and very foul-smelling conveyance called a bus. We are in what was known as the Spanish Netherlands in my time, but Austin tells me it is now called Belgium. There are many people on the bus— peasants, no doubt, on their way to market. They are all dressed as I am or worse. No waistcoats! No dresses! Not a single corset! I see four women whose bosoms are revealed to a degree more suited to the ballroom than to daylight.<p>

Although my own attire is modest by comparison, everyone stares at me. "Why are they looking at me?" I whisper to the blonde.

"Duh. Because you're so beautiful," he whispers back.

At least he noticed that I am beautiful.

There are no seats available on the bus, and no gentleman (and I use the term loosely) offers to surrender his. One man does, however, pat his lap and say, "Sit with me, angel."

I look at Austin to ascertain if this is now an established custom. I am relieved when he shakes his head and says, "No, thanks. We'll just stand."

Once started, the bus is faster than the fastest carriage, wilder than the wildest horse. I resist the urge to shriek, but it is difficult. I try to see the streets and houses and people, but it all goes by much faster than I can take it in. There is writing everywhere. Most of the peasantry in Euphrasia cannot even write their names. Can all the people in Austin's time read?

I ask him.

"Sure," he says.

"But how can they all be taught? And why would they all need to read, if they are just going to be field workers and such?"

"Well, that's why you have to learn to read—so you won't get stuck being a field worker."

"But what if they wish to be field workers?"

"Why would anyone want backbreaking labor and low pay?"

"But the peasants in Euphrasia always seemed so merry."

"Did you spend much time with the peasants, then?"

"No, but I saw them at festivals and such." I stop. Of course they were happy at festivals. For then, they were not working in the fields. Why _would_ they wish to be field workers? I was led to believe that the workers in Euphrasia were happy, but in all probability, the field workers in Euphrasia were born to be field workers and sentenced to their lot in life, just as I was born to be a princess and sentenced to mine.

Put into this perspective, being a princess does not seem bad at all.

"Amazing," I say to Austin. I look around the bus with new respect. It is quite impressive to think that each and every one of the peasants here can read.

The bus makes many stops and people get on and off. Finally, it is our turn to get out in a gray sort of place, gray streets, gray buildings, and gray people.

"Where is the grass?" I ask the blonde.

"Someplace else," he says, laughing. He nudges the sack that says GAP, into which he has placed my jewel case. "What's the smallest thing you have in there?"

"None of my jewels are small."

"A ring, maybe?" I start to take out the box, but he stops me.

"Not here." He rushes me behind a pillar and blocks me from sight as I extract the smallest bauble, a tanzanite ring given to me for my twelfth birthday.

"That's the smallest? The stone's as big as my eyeball."

A slight exaggeration. I am no more thrilled to part with it than he is to have to sell it. Still, I hand it to him, and he leads me into a store with all manner of things— guns, jewelry (nothing near as lovely as my ring), and other objects I cannot identify, although I do see something which resembles Austin's music maker.

Austin approaches the shopkeeper, a hairy and rather frightening sort of person, and holds up my ring. "We need to sell this. Her mother's, um, sick and needs medicine."

The bear-turned-man stares at us rather strangely, then asks, "_Parlez-vous Français?_" He does not respond. Ah! Austin thinks he is so smart, but the fool speaks no French!

"_Oui. Je parle Français_," I say. I turn to the blonde. "Tell me what I am to say."

"Okay, but don't agree to his first offer."

I nod, then turn to the man and say in French, "We need to sell this."

"Fifty Euros," he says before I can even get out the part about my mother needing medication. This I add. "I don't care if you need it to buy drugs," the man snarls.

"Fifty." I repeat this to Austin.

"Are you kidding?" he says. "This is worth thousands."

The man must understand because he tells me, "I can't sell fancy stuff like that. This isn't an antique store."

I am about to tell him that my ring is no antique. Then, I realize it is. Indeed, _I_ am an antique.

"Ask him if he can do any better," Austin says.

I do, and he says, "Two hundred. That's it."

I give him my sweetest look, the one that almost always persuaded Father to do my bidding, and I say, "Please, sir. If you could make it four hundred Euros for my poor, dear mother." And when I think of Mother, Mother whom I may never see again, whom I have disappointed, my eyes begin to tear up. "You know you are getting a bargain."

"Three fifty," the man growls. "Now, if _you_ were for sale, for that I would pay a thousand."

Are all women for sale now? In my current attire, I can certainly see how one might think I was such a woman. But I say, "I will take three hundred seventy-five Euros, _monsieur_."

The man opens a cash box under the counter, hands me a wad of money, which he does not bother to count, then whisks away my precious ring before I have time to bid it good-bye. I note that he is chuckling, pleased with his bargain. I bite my lip and resist the urge to sob.

"Hey, you weren't a total disaster in there," Austin says, counting out the money as we leave.

I understand this is a compliment, and I manage a smile, accepting it.

* * *

><p>Our next stop is a door with peeling green paint. Austin knocks upon it, and a man who might be the twin brother of the last man answers.<p>

"What do you want?" he asks in French.

I look at Austin.

"Jolie sent us," he says in English.

The man nods and allows us to pass. "You have money?" he says in English.

"How much for a passport?" Austin asks. "For her?"

The man gives a price, which is almost all we have, then says, "Let's see it."

"I am quite sorry, sir, but we only have one hundred fifty," I tell him.

He nods. "If you were to only have two hundred fifty, I might be able to do it. Can you find that?"

I rather enjoyed bargaining with the last gentleman. It made me feel like Father negotiating treaties, so I say, "I can find two hundred."

"Very well," the man says.

I look at Austin. He nods and hands him the money, taking care not to show all we have.

The man takes it with dirty hands. "What is your name?"

"My name? My name is Her Royal Highness, Princess Allyson Aurora Augusta Ludwiga Wilhelmina Agnes Marie Rose of Euphrasia."

"It's Allyson . . ." Austin interrupts. "Allyson . . . um . . ."

I grasp his meaning. "Dawson. Ally Dawson."

"Is that your final decision?" the man growls.

"Of course," I say. "It is my name. The other name was in jest." I laugh. "Ha, ha!"

"Stand here." He pushes me toward a paper board hanging from the wall. When I stand before it, he takes out a small, square object, rather resembling Austin's telephone.

"What is . . . ?"

A bright light flashes. "Good! Wait here." He disappears into another room.

I stand quite still, attempting to touch nothing in the dark, cramped, dirty room.

"Ludwiga?" Austin asks.

"Father was sad at not having a male heir, so he attempted to name me after several great Euphrasian kings—Augustus, Ludwig, and Wilhelm, alphabetically so no one would be offended. The other names—Agnes, Marie, and Rose— were Euphrasian queens. Dawson is my father's surname"

"How about Aurora?"

"She was my grandmother on my mother's side, and she was named for the goddess of the dawn." I glance around, spying a millipede making its way across the wall, dangerously close to nesting in my hair. I move closer to him. "Why are we here?"

"Getting a passport." At my blank look, he adds, "Travel documents. So you can get around, travel. I got this guy's name from a girl I met through a guy I met at the Gap."

_Travel_! The idea is wonderful and terrible at the same time, to be aboard a boat to a strange new place with this strange, messy-haired young man I met only yesterday. I shiver slightly.

"So I will go with you?" I ask Austin.

"With me? Look, I'm helping you out, getting you set up. But after that, you're on your own."

"On my own? But how can I . . . what will I do?"

"Sell some more jewels. I don't know."

I cannot do that. How will I know where to go, how to sell them? How will I obtain food or even know what to wear? Even in Euphrasia, I handled no money. I do not even know how Austin paid for the bus. And if I am on my own, I can never make him fall in love with me.

"Will you help me a bit, just with getting money and a ticket for the ship and such?" After he helps me with that, I will talk him into the next thing. And then the next. Surely, when he sees how much I need him, he will let me stay with him. Mother always said that men like to feel needed. I gaze up into his eyes, letting my lower lip quiver just a bit. It is not difficult.

He sighs. "I guess I can help you a little."

Now that I have achieved my goal, I clap my hands to show that I am keeping my chin up. "Thank you! It is my fondest wish to travel!"

* * *

><p>Austin's POV:<p>

As soon as we get the passport and are out the door, my cell phone rings. It's my mother. "Austin, where are you? They said you ran away from the tour."

"Who is this?" I say.

"You know very well who this is."

Ally's still with me. I feel bad about just ditching her, but what else can I do? Right now, she's staring at the photograph on the passport. Every few steps, she touches her own face, like she's trying to see if it's really still there.

"Well," I say, "it sounds like my mother, but my mother never calls."

"Very funny. Don't change the subject. Where are you? Cassidy says she called earlier and some girl answered the phone."

"Cassidy? She didn't call me. We broke up. She broke up with _me_." I see Ally's hand fly to her mouth. "Hold on a second, Mom." To Ally, I say, "Something you need to tell me?"

She purses her lips in thought before saying, "I am dreadfully sorry . . . in the excitement, I forgot. A person named Cassidy called. She sounded angry."

_Cassidy_? In my hand, my mother's voice keeps buzzing. "Austin? Where are you? Did you hang up on me?"

I let her wait. "Cassidy called? What did you say?"

"I told her we ran away together," Ally says.

"You told her _what_?"

In my hand, Mom's voice says, "This girl told Cassidy you'd run off together."

Ally looks like she's about to burst into tears. "Was it wrong to say that? I am unfamiliar with telephones!"

_Nah, you've just totally ruined any possibility of getting back with Cassidy_. But she looks so cute, like a little girl who's afraid of getting in trouble. "No, of course not."

"Austiiiiiiiiiiiin!" the telephone shrieks.

Then my father's voice, loud but business-as-usual. "Austin, speak to me this instant."

"Sorry, Dad." I quickly bring the phone to my ear.

"Sorry?! Your mother's crying."

"Why's she doing that?"

"Because she thinks you've run off with some girl you just met!"

Funny thought. "Oh, yeah. I guess I did."

"What?" I'm enjoying this. It's the first time they've paid attention to me since the time I flunked science and crashed my car in the same week. It might be fun to mess with them more.

"Yeah, I met her yesterday. You'll like her, Dad. She's real pretty. Oh, and she's a princess. We eloped." _That'll get their attention_.

No answer from Dad. Maybe the call dropped. Maybe he passed out.

But no. Mom's there now. "What do you mean you eloped? I want you on a plane back home this minute. This minute!"

"Okay. Wire me some money, and I'll buy a ticket." This is fun. But as soon as I give them what they want, they'll start ignoring me again.

"Don't you get smart with me, young man."

"I wasn't—"

"I'll wire you the money, and you'll buy a ticket on the next flight."

_Isn't that what I just said? What would happen if I just kept messing with them?_

"All right. But I'm bringing Ally with me." I hadn't planned on saying that, but it just pops out. It'll really drive them nuts.

When I get off the phone, Ally says, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For saying I can go with you."

I shrug. "At least I get to go home. Who wants to travel around and see all this junk?"

"You do not like to travel."

I shake my head, then smile, thinking about it. "Boy, are my parents going to freak when they see you."

"Much as my parents, er, freaked when you appeared. Will it be a long journey? How many weeks will it take? I have so many questions. Will we need to acquire more clothes in order to conduct our journey in style? What if the ship sinks? Or there is an outbreak of cholera? I might never see my family again."

I start laughing.

"What is so funny?"

"Weeks? Try a day."

"What sort of ship can journey to the other side of the earth in a day?"

"The kind that can fly."

* * *

><p>Mom works like a fiend when she's freaking out. Within twenty-four hours, Ally and I are at the airport.<p>

"Remember what I told you," I say to the brunette as we wait in line for security.

"My name is Ally Dawson. I am from Belgium. And if anyone questions my jewels, I am to say they are part of the new Royal Euphrasian line of . . . what is it called again?"

"Costume jewelry."

"Costume jewelry, which I am going to South Beach, Florida, to model. But how would anyone believe that such lovely jewels are false?"

"Because no one wears real jewelry that big anymore, not even the Queen of England." We had to sell another one of her rings to buy her plane ticket, but that doesn't help much with the weight. "Can you remember that?"

"Yes. Costume jewelry."

A few minutes later, we reach the front of the line. I think I'll hold my breath until we're on the plane.

I show my passport. The woman barely looks at it. Just another boring American student. When she gets to Ally's, she examines it more carefully and begins talking to her in rapid French. Does she know her passport's a fake?

Ally responds in French, and a lot of it. What is she saying? Why didn't I take French?

What am I, kidding myself? If I'd taken French, I'd have only learned the swear words, like I did in Spanish.

The conversation goes on for approximately eight hours, but finally the employee lets Ally go.

"What was that about?" I ask her when we're safely past.

"She noticed my passport was new. It only has the one stamp, from when we crossed into France. So she asked if it is my first time traveling outside Europe."

"To which you said . . . ?"

"I said, yes, as a matter of fact, it is. I have been sleeping for three hundred years, so I have never been on an airplane before. Oh, and, by the way, I am heir to the throne of Euphrasia." She sees the look on my face. "Lighten up! I was joking."

"Don't joke about that. It's not funny."

"It is so."

I whisper, "I was sure we were going to be busted . . . um, get sent to the dungeon."

"But you would not be going, in any case. It would be only I who was in trouble."

"You think I'd let you take the fall for it, that I'd just leave you and go home?"

"We barely know each other. And you hate me."

"Still, I wouldn't do that. I couldn't."

I hadn't realized it before, but it's true. Could I be falling for Ally? No. It's just that I feel responsible for her, since I kissed her and ruined her life and all.

I point to two seats by our gate, but Ally's looking at me.

"What?" I say.

"You are a wonderful person," she says. "In Euphrasia, everyone was kind to me because I was a princess. But I always wished . . ." She stops and sits down.

"What?"

"Lady Brooke used to take me on long rides through the Euphrasian countryside, since I was not allowed to go anywhere on my own. Once, on a very cold day, I happened to spy a peasant couple. Each wore a thin, threadbare coat, and the woman shivered. The man took off his own coat and put it over her shoulders, even though this left him quite exposed. When the woman tried to stop him, he refused to take it back. He allowed the coat to fall to the ground, then placed it again upon her shoulders, until finally, she accepted it. I could see that he was trying to walk more rapidly to get to shelter, but he did not complain."

"Wow. What did you do?"

"What I did was of no importance."

"But you did something?"

"I suppose." She glances down. "I made the driver stop the carriage and then asked Lady Brooke to give the couple our cloaks."

"That was nice."

"It was a small sacrifice for me. I had numerous cloaks at home. The man made a much greater sacrifice. I always wanted someone to sacrifice for me, as that man sacrificed for that woman, not because I was royalty, but simply because he lo . . . liked me. And you have."

I shrug. "It's not a sacrifice."

And it's true. It's not. I wanted to go home early, wanted to try and get back together with Cassidy or, at least, be able to spend my summer sleeping and going to the beach instead of touring the Museum of Napoleon's Nose Hair. Ally gave me a great excuse. If I'd known running away would work, I'd have tried it sooner.

The fact that my parents are completely riled is just an added bonus. Of course, they didn't believe the truth about her.

"Austin, that's not funny," Mom said when I told her to prepare for visiting royalty.

"I'm not trying to be funny."

That's when Dad picked up the phone again. "This has gone on long enough, Austin. Your mother's all upset."

"It's true, Dad. She's a princess. Why would I make that up?"

"I have no idea, but I don't think—"

"Okay, Dad, you win. She's some girl I picked up on the street. You never should have chosen a teen tour that went through Amsterdam's red-light district."

That pretty much ended the conversation.

Since then, I've decided it's probably better if I don't tell anyone that Ally's a princess. I mean, who'd believe it?

* * *

><p>Now they're calling us to board the plane. I check to make sure that Ally has her boarding pass. She does, and she's making a minute examination of the bar code. I nudge her. "It's time to get on."<p>

Her eyes widen. "Onto the flying ship?"

"Onto the airplane. It's called an airplane."

She stands, then looks at all the people jockeying for space in line. "Will the ship . . . er, airplane, leave without all of them?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, is it necessary to push and shove, as these people are doing, or can we wait patiently?"

I never thought about it. People just usually do push and shove to get on the plane, but then you just end up waiting on the runway, anyway. "We can wait," I say. I would have thought she'd expect to go first, being a princess and all.

"Good. I do not like to shove." She takes her place at the end of the line, behind an elderly woman. "This is my first time on an airplane," she tells her.

"Are you frightened, dear?"

"I am excited." And the woman looks excited for her.

We finally reach our seats. I give Talia the window, even though it means I'm stuck in the center.

"What is this?" Ally asks, holding up a plastic-wrapped package.

"Slippers. They're to keep your feet warm."

"How nice!" She starts to put them on. She's got the cutest little feet. They look like they've never walked anywhere. Probably, she has servants who spread cream on them every day. She had a complete spazz about the blister she got walking. A moment later, she holds up another package. "What is this?"

"A mask. It's to cover your eyes so you can sleep."

She takes out the mask and examines it. "I have slept quite long enough already." She tucks it into the seat-back pocket.

_Hoo-boy_. I remember last night at the hotel in Paris—a hotel with two queen-size beds with down comforters—

Ally refused to sleep at all, instead running to the window over and over to look at the city lights.

"Well, some people like to sleep," I tell her, "so you'll have to be quiet."

She pouts for a full ten seconds before holding up something else. "And these?"

"Ear buds, so you can listen to music or watch a movie."

She purses her lips in this weird way she does. "What is a movie?"

"It's like television." She saw TV last night at the hotel. "You watch it to kill time on the plane."

_Please, please, let her at least watch a movie. _

"Kill time?"

"You know, make it go faster."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because it's boring, sitting and doing nothing."

"But you are doing nothing in the sky! How can that be boring?"

I shrug. "To most people, it is."

"Try being asleep for three hundred years. Then you will know what boring is."

I don't say anything. I'm one of those people who want to sleep.

"Everything is boring to you, isn't it?" she says.

"That's not true."

_Is it? _

"Oh, no?" She tips up her feet to look at the airline slippers again. "Let me see . . . your parents sent you on a tour of Europe for . . . how long?"

"A month. I've been gone three weeks. But I don't know what that's got to do—"

"Three weeks at great expense. And during that time, you've visited how many countries?"

I count on my fingers—England, the Netherlands, France, Belgium . . . "I'm not sure. Five or six, maybe. It's all a blur."

"It's all a blur," she mimics, then laughs. "But in any case, you have viewed great masterworks, marvels of architecture, historical sites, and you have generally found it to be, on the whole, quite dull. Is that the case?"

When she puts it that way, it does sort of make me sound like a jerk. But she's not getting the reason why I didn't want to go.

"Look, you don't understand. My parents, they just sent me to fulfill some fantasy they have about having a son who's into that stuff. I never get any choice about what I do in the summer. After I get home, they're going to want me to take an SAT course and get a job. It's all about them." I pause. "Besides, the tour bus sort of sucked."

"Ah. So, in order to get away from the sucking tour bus—"

"Sucky."

"Beg pardon?"

"Sucky. You would say the bus was sucky. That's what Americans would say."

"Thank you. So, in order to get away from the sucky tour bus, you sneaked off, found a lost kingdom, entered a castle, kissed a princess—an incredibly beautiful princess who had been asleep for centuries due to a curse placed upon her at birth by an evil witch—caused a fracas, were thrown into a dungeon, escaped, and traveled cross-country with that same incredibly beautiful—"

"Not to mention modest." I know I shouldn't interrupt her or I'll never get my ear buds in, but it's tempting.

"Incredibly beautiful and intelligent princess. And still, you are quite bored, Austin, so bored that you cannot wait to put in your ear buds and be done with this conversation and this voyage."

I fumble with the ear buds guiltily.

"So my question to you, Austin, is what is it that you do _not_ find boring?" She stops speaking and looks at me. I look at her. If anyone else, my friends from school, even Cassidy back when we were dating, had asked me such a question, I'd have blown them off, said something like, "partying" or "raising hell," just to end the conversation. But with Ally, I know that won't work. She won't think it's funny. She'll think I'm stupid.

So instead of saying the first thing that comes to mind, I think about it, really think about the last time I wasn't bored with something, the last time I was excited. She's right. It's been a while. My life has been this long series of hoops to jump through—school, activities Dad thinks would look good on my college apps, whatever, so I have to think back a long time.

"I apologize." She interrupts my thoughts. "Do people not talk to each other in your time, then?"

"It's not that. I was trying to think."

"Obviously an activity of great difficulty for you." She giggles.

_Difficulty_. That makes me remember something.

When I was a kid, I used to play the piano and the guitar. I dreamed of being a rock star and making millions. Dad had even willingly paid for my lessons. I was too naïve and careless to think about why he didn't mind spending money on something as silly as music, because I was just happy he was. But when I was thirteen, I finally realized why he had paid so eagerly when I overheard a conversation he was having with my mother. He said that it would look good on my college application, and that was the only reason he even supported it in the first place.

I told him I quit the next morning.

I still play on my free time, as long as he or my mother aren't around, which is quite often. I even write my own songs. Hannah, thankfully, doesn't rat me out.

"I like to play music," I finally say.

She looks surprised. "Music? You mean like in an orchestra?"

"More like a rock star. This one time in my elementary school, we were putting on a talent show. I was the only one who could play multiple instruments and wasn't afraid to sing in front of a crowd. Everyone else wanted to do group activities or not be involved. But I didn't care. Being in front of a crowd, hearing them cheer me on …. It was amazing…." I stopped, picturing it. "Dad and Mom couldn't make it to the show, and I was pretty upset. But listening to all of the other parents in the room applauding and encouraging me made me forget about it." I pause. "I get the most amazing feeling when I'm holding onto a guitar or playing keys on the piano."

"You like music too?"

"Wait, you like music?" I question, turning to face her.

"Yes. I am very skilled at the piano, for it was one of my gifts when I was born. But I also love to sing. However, Father and Mother forbid me ever pursuing it. A princess having musical interests is 'unacceptable' in their eyes. I should be more focused on being future queen and taking over the throne, instead of composing my own songs."

"You're parents are like that to?" I ask.

She nods.

"I think I'd really like to be a famous singer, though." When I think of what Dad wants me to do—wear a suit all day and sit at a desk—it just sort of makes me want to cry. "It would be so cool to spend every day, in the studio, making new music for people to love."

She smiles. "Then I think you should do so."

I laugh. "Yeah, right. I can just see me telling my dad I want to make music for a living. He thinks that's for losers."

Once, after the piano/guitar thing, I said I thought it would be cool to get a summer job at the Mall of Miami. There's a music store there called Sonic Boom, which I love, that was hiring people to work and perform live in-store, and I really wanted to do it. Dad said that it was a waste of time and stupid; that I had one in a billion chances of making it and that I should stop living in a fantasy world.

"You should tell him that that is what you wish to do."

"Yeah?" I chuckle. "How would that work with your parents?"

She shrugs, then smiles. "They cannot keep an eye on us all the time, can they?" Then she yawns. "My! Perhaps it is the power of suggestion, with the slippers and the sleep mask, but I am, indeed, rather tired."

She places her sleep mask over her eyes and, in a moment, she is sawing wood, her head drifting sideways onto my shoulder.

I know I should take the opportunity for a nap of my own, but instead I take out a sheet of paper and pencil and start writing lyrics to a song. I had been working on this tune with my guitar for a few weeks, but I couldn't come up with a song to fit it. Until now.

The plane starts to taxi. Ally jolts awake.

"Austin? Austin?" She peers out the window, then at me, then back out the window. "We're flying. Oh, my!"

"It's okay. It just took off. They do it all the time."

"So you have told me. But I need to know something else."

I put down my pencil. "What?"

"Where is Euphrasia?"

I look past her out the window. The plane climbs higher. It is a clear day, so I can see pretty far, but I don't even know what direction Euphrasia would be in. "I don't know."

"But surely . . . we can see so far away."

"I don't know." But then I do see it, a little wilderness near the shore, almost out of sight. I know its Euphrasia because, through the trees, only visible if you know it's there, is a spire. The castle. "I think that's it."

"That?" She stares where I'm pointing. "So small?"

"Yeah. Everything looks small from an airplane. You can't even see people from here. It's not a big deal."

"But that is impossible! It cannot be so small! It was my whole world."

And then she leans her forehead against the window and doesn't say anything for a very long time, just stares at that tiny spire until we're high in the clouds.

* * *

><p><strong>I hope you all have a happy and healthy New Year! Let me know how you feel about this chapter and I will see you next time!<strong>

**Love you!**

**~Hannah**


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